Tonight saw a late decision to come to a game really close to home in the Southern Counties East Football League (SCEFL) Development League East, between Larkfield & New Hythe Under 23’s and Sheppey United Under 23’s.

The table tells a tale of two sides at opposite ends of the division. Shelley United sat fourth coming into the game, with 29 points from 17 games, while Larkfield & New Hythe were rooted to the bottom of the table with just one win and a draw from their 13 matches.

Sheppey United’s goals this season have flowed from Kenzie Monahan (7 goals), Joshua Bedzrah (6 goals) and both David Johnson and Jack Marsh (5 goals each). Larkfield & New Hythe have found goals hard to come by, with their leading scorers being Daryl Hollingyon (3 goals) and George Tilley (2 goals).

The game started with Larkfield & New Hythe defending intense Sheppey United pressure from the kick off.

On 23 minutes the relentless Sheppey United pressure paid off when their enigmatic number 10, Kenzie Monahan, broke the deadlock.

For the next 20 minutes it saw wave after wave of Sheppey United attacks. All of these, because of fine last ditch defending or solid goal keeping, were ultimately fruitless, leaving the away team with a solitary goal lead.

On 45 minutes totally against the run of play, the home side were level when Ian Farrow broke free and despite a late lunge, was able to stay on his feet and round the keeper to score, to make it 1-1 at the break.

In the 56th minute Sheppey United were ahead again, Fin Gooding scoring with a fine headed finish.

Larkfield & New Hythe showed some strong resilience in the heavy rain, to find a way back into the game. In the 63rd minute the scores were deservedly level again, when Larkfield & New Hythe’s centre half followed up after the Sheppey keeper had saved a header from a corner, to stab home and make the scores 2-2.

With just nine minutes to go, Alex Barnes fired in from the left hand side to score for Sheppey and put the away side 2-3 ahead.

Larkfield & New Hythe threw everything into attack for the final nine minutes, however as the fulltime whistle blew their gallant efforts were for nought. Sheppey United had earned these three points the hard way and on a difficult night because of the weather, both sides had created an entertaining match.