Erith & Belvedere 3 Sporting Bengal 2

Erith & Belvedere's new manager Wayne Brown opened his managerial reign at Park View Road with a hard-fought victory over Sporting Bengal United. The win leaves the Deres just a point of the third and final promotion slot, writes Thomas Hawes.


Brown fielded a team with four new signings and the early signs were good, Leon Braithwaite and Chris Dickson going very close in the opening quarter of an hour.

Only some superb saves from Sporting's Konu Miah kept the
Londoners level until the 24th minute when debutant Braithwaite bundled in Chris Hurst's cross to give the Deres the lead.

Any hope of a rout similar to the 5-0 league cup thrashing the Deres inflicted on Sporting in December were eradicated when Prince Pipim latched onto a cross from the right to head the ball home.

Sporting were soon ahead after 39 minutes when Nizamul Hoque capitalised on a poor header away by Chris Hurst. Hoque fired the ball through Ricky Hall's legs to provoke ecstatic celebrations amongst the Sporting players.

Their lead wasn't to last long as Chris Dickson smuggled the ball away from a Sporting defender by the corner flag, made his way inside the box and fired the ball into the top corner from an acute angle.

Dickson scored what proved to be the winner in the last minute of the half when Leon Braithwaite played an exquisite through ball to "Dicko" who once again fired the ball in the top corner.

However, the goal came in controversial circumstances as Sporting's Prince Pipim was injured when Dickson scored.

The Deres dominated the second half and had numerous chances to win more convincingly, but they hanged on with relative ease to a second consecutive league win and they will hope they can make it a third when they visit VCD Athletic on Saturday.