Sunday’s triple header of County Finals at the Gallagher Stadium in Maidstone kicked off with the intriguing battle for the Sunday Trophy between Spartans (from the Herne Bay and Whitstable Leagues) and Manorwood (from Orpington and Bromley).

The two sides didn’t disappoint producing a Final that ebbed and flowed until eventually it was won by Spartans courtesy of two first half goals which left their opponents with too much to claw back.

Spartans flew out of the blocks with Lee Waldock being brilliantly denied in the opening seconds before after only five minutes, Matthew Betts gave the Whitstable side the lead heading home a corner after Manorwood keeper Ross Lane had needlessly conceded a corner.

Manorwood’s first chance saw Jason John take the ball round the keeper only for his shot to be cleared with a brave header as the boots flew in.

John caused the Spartans defence a few early problems and on their next attack, he found Will Podciborski who flashed a low drive across the face of goal.

Spartans rallied and Chevan Xavier was denied by a smart save from Lane before Manorwood failed to clear, Nic Smith took time on the edge of the box to fire home in first half stoppage time.

Immediately Manorwood responded almost straight from kick off winning a corner. And from it, John beat two despairing defenders to arrow a header over Harry Barrow and into the net to give his side a lifeline.

Anyone who expected Manorwood to roar out of the blocks after the break was mistaken as although they had plenty of possession, Barrow had very little to do, whilst at the other end, Spartans were happy to break when they could. And it was from one of these excursions, Waldock stung the keeper’s hands with a fierce drive.

The game seemed to be meandering towards the inevitable conclusion only for Manorwood to finally rally and twice in the closing stages Jamie Moore went close – once hitting the outside of the post and secondly seeing a header cleared off of the line.

After the game, Manorwood Chairman Mark Malin expressed his disappointment to KSN, “We’ve come a long way through this competition – I think 126 teams started and to come down to today!”

“Spartans just about edged it today. We were slow out of the blocks today, but we’ve been like that all season but our luck run out today.”

“We spoke about going on and coming back at half time, but it just didn’t happen for us today!”

Meanwhile, Spartans boss Russ Mason was understandably a happy man…  “The boys did well today, they’ve worked very hard. We started well every round this year and knew we had to again today.”

“As we were walking off at half time, you got the impression that they thought they could get back into the game.”

“We told our boys that as we told them to come out the same again to put them on the back foot and they did which means we’re taking the cup back to Whitstable.”

SPARTANS – Harry Barrow, Morgan Howson, Richard Walters, Danny Staples, Nick Lingham, Bradley Whitworth, Matthew Betts, Nic Smith, Connor Ashman, Chevan Xavier, Lee Waldock

Subs – Darren Abbott, Billy Durdy, Ritchie Martin, Gavin George, Murad Yanik

MANORWOOD – Ross Lane, Thomas Podciborski, Ross Martin, Steven Simpson, Josh Bradley, Will Podciborski, Darren Brown, Jamie Moore, Jack Perry, Jason John, Michael Lovelock

Subs – Jack Dyckhoff, Dean Jenkins, Scott Malin, Shane Deehy, James Gammon

Referee:

Assistants:

Fourth Official:

Pictures supplied by Julian Hart Photography.