Recap
Match report courtesy of East Kent Sports
DEAL TOWN 4 KENNINGTON 0
For the second weekend running Deal cruised past Kennington in a cup competition by a four-goal margin as Derek Hares’ side made it nine wins in a row in all competitions.
And after the previous Saturday’s 5-1 victory in the Kent Senior Trophy the Hoops looked set to win this latest meeting in the FA Vase first round even more emphatically when they went in at half-time leading 4-0 in front of a crowd of 423 at the Charles Ground.
They took the lead after just six minutes when, following one of Jack Paxman’s dangerous long throws, Sam Wilson slipped a neat pass into the path of Alfie Foster who bagged his fifth goal of the season with the sort of composed finish you would expect to see from a centre-forward rather than a centre-half.
It was just the start Kennington didn’t want as they looked to erase the painful memory of their Kent Senior Trophy exit but their current eighth place in the SCEL Premier Division table is a fair indicator of their capabilities and Dan Scorer’s side looked poised to make it a genuine contest until they were suddenly hit by a “three-goals-in-10-minutes” blitz just past the half hour mark.
Man-of-the-match Ben Chapman led the way with two of the goals, the first after Macauley Murray’s superb pass enabled Paxman to race into the box before pulling the ball back for Chapman to fire into the roof of the net.
And Murray was involved again three minutes later when his corner was dispatched by Hoops’ captain Kane Smith with a brave diving header.
Deal were now playing with the sort of confidence that a long winning streak breeds and Chapman made it 4-0 four minutes before the break when he received a pass from his brother Tom before firing home off the legs of Kennington ’keeper Joe Mant.
With the tie effectively over, the only remaining question when the teams re-appeared after the break was how many goals Deal would eventually win by. The fact the final scoreline didn’t in fact change was due to a combination of reasons including Kennington’s determination to salvage some pride and Deal concentrating more on recording an impressive tenth clean sheet of the season.
Both teams duly achieved their objectives although for Kennington there was the “downside” of incurring two red cards, one for defender Harry Stow after a late tackle on Hoops’ substitute Joe Reeves and the other for Dan Cook, one of the visitors’ coaching staff, for his verbal abuse of the officials.
It mattered little to the Hoops however, who were already focussing on trying to make it 10 wins in a row when they travel to Bearsted for a league game on Tuesday.
Tony Flashman’s photos: Alfie Foster wheels away after firing Deal into their early lead
Ben Chapman drills home his second goal of the game just before half-time
Deal: Tonkin, Paxman, Penny, Foster, Smith, Niblett, T Chapman, Murray (Reeves 72), Wilson (Coyne 75), B Chapman, Howard (Rivera 64).
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