Well done Keith, you deserved it, says promoted boss Seager

Sunday 06th May 2007

Unlike the higher reaches of the over-rated and over-paid Premiership, managers here in Kent have more respect for each other, writes Stephen McCartney.

Thamesmead Town lifted the Kent League Cup for the second time in three years following their comfortable 3-0 win over a jaded Whitstable Town side yesterday.

The Mead, who scored their goals from inside the six-yard box through James Brown, Rikki Cable and Curtis Williams, prevented the Oystermen winning the treble.

But it meant that the Bayliss Avenue outfit won a treble of their own.

Mead’s youth side landed the Plaaya Cup last Monday with a 3-0 win at Tonbridge Angels and just 24-hours later their reserves lifted the Kent League Reserve Division Cup.

A brace from Steve Diamond secured a 2-1 win at Deal Town so the pressure was on Keith McMahon’s first team to follow suit.

But McMahon, whose also Mead’s under eighteen’s manager, admitted that he was “over the moon” following yesterday’s win at Folkestone’s Buzzlines Stadium.

“A great performance today and I thought we deserved it. A long hard season, we deserved to get something out of it in the end,” he told www.kentishfootball.co.uk afterwards.

“I thought we dominated from maybe twenty minutes in and second half we dominated the whole of the second half but it wasn’t the pitch to play them off the park.”

Opponents Whitstable Town had already won the Kent Senior Trophy and Kent League title before yesterday’s match.

“I think after them winning the league, the Kent Senior Trophy it was not after the Lord Mayor’s show, but it was a little bit for them to get up to win,” said McMahon.

“We needed to win something so we put in a good performance today.”

Speaking about winning their very own treble, McMahon added: “The reserves (won) the cup on Tuesday and the youth team winning Monday as well, so we’re quite strong at the moment.

“It was a big week for us and everyone kept saying to me today “the pressure’s on you” because the other two have won so it was good - the club deserved it to be fair.”

McMahon wished Whitstable Town all the very best of luck for their first ever Ryman League campaign, which gets under way on 18^th August.

Whitstable Town are expected to do well, especially as the last two Kent League title winners, Ramsgate and Maidstone United have won back-to-back league titles and both find themselves in the Ryman Premier League and the side before them, Cray Wanderers, qualified for the play-off’s in their first season.

“They’ve shown people the way to go to be fair,” McMahon said. “The way they conduct themselves, the way they’ve respect teams.

“I don’t think there’s a club that say a bad word against them - we’ll certainly miss them.

“Me personally because I’ve got friends there as well. When we’re not playing I’m going to watch.

“That’s been one of the highlights of the Kent League this year with them.”

Whitstable Town manager Marc Seager, was disappointed that he lost his first ever final and missed out on the treble.

“I thought we was going for the quadruple,” he told www.kentishfootball.co.uk afterwards.

“Obviously the treble as Kent Senior (Trophy), League championship, League Cup and obviously promotion.

But we’ve got three of them, it’s a shame that we’ve lost today but at the end of the day, we’re a Ryman League team now.

“The last ten days been a bit of a blur but we came here today to do a job and on the day we weren’t good enough.

“I wasn’t too happy with the performance today but I do think it was one game too many for us.

“We’ve had a long, hard season but if someone said you had to lose one of them, I would have picked this one.

“We had a great day out at Dartford (beating Bearsted 1-0 to win the Kent Senior Trophy), because it was our first bit of silverware as a team and we went on to claim the league title, what we wanted.

“But today it would be nice to win all three but we haven’t but we’ve been beaten by the better side on the day.

“Fair play to Keith and his boys, they’ve come down here (and) I’m pleased for Keith because it’s his first bit of silverware as well and if we were going to lose it to anyone, I’m pleased we’ve lost it to Thamesmead.”

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