Bay retain the Carl Davies Memorial Trophy

Herne Bay retained the 'Carl Davies Memorial Cup' with a good 3-1 win over Woodstock Sports. Manager Sam Denly took the opportunity of playing all 18 players in what turned out to be a feisty affair. Despite being a goal down at half time the Bay went on to win with three second half goals, 2 from Dean Grant and Joe Kennett heading in the third.

The first half was quite even with both teams getting there fair share of the ball with Jordan Casey and Cameron White making inroads for the Bay and Ashley Baverstock and Joe McDonald doing the same for the Sports. On 22 minutes the Sports took the lead when a good cross from McGowan caught the Bay defence ball watching and Baverstock nipped in to head past Jack Delo. Two minutes later Casey and Martin combined well and should have levelled but Martins effort was fired straight at the Woodstock Keeper Chris Smith. Dean Grant also had a rasping shot well saved by Smith on the half hour mark. Herne Bay were starting to get on top with Dan Lawrence producing some good balls for the Bay
forwards to latch on to but they found the rotund Woodstock custodian Chris Smith in fine form. H/T 1-0

The second half started with 7 Herne Bay changes, in came the Turner Twins Michael and James, Nathan Eastwood, Aaron Burrett, Anthony Searle, Joe Kennett and Conner Sanders, they all gelled quite quickly and soon started to overwhelm the Woodstock side and to be fair it was only some inspired goalkeeping from Chris Smith that kept them in front.

Jordan Casey pulled up with a knock on 53 minutes and Dean Grant came back on. Within minutes. Frazer Rogers clashed with Grant and the Referee had to cool things down, this seemed to fire up Dean because two minutes later he fired in an unstoppable shot past Smith from 20 yards. 1-1.

Minutes later Dan Lawrence sent over a corner to the far post this was met by Joe Kennett who ghosted in to head the Bay into the lead. 2-1. At times it was only Chris Smith who kept the Herne Bay side from going further in front but with only a minute left on the clock following a Dan Lawrence corner Dean Grant headed in from close range to make the score 3-1.

Manager Sam Denly will have quite a headache when sorting out his squad with so many players showing such promise. Players that caught the eye today were; Dan Lawrence Joe Kennett, Dean Grant and Aaron Burrett.

Squad: Delo, Axton, Lloyd, Etherington, Martin, Sayer, J. Turner, M. Turner, Kennett, Burrett, Grant, Sanders, Eastwood, Searle, White, Casey.