Whitstable Town 3-1 Hollands & Blair - We've got some good answers tonight and we're going to make sure that we're really focused on achieving a double this year, says Whitstable Town coach Taylor Couldry

Whitstable Town 3 – 1 Hollands & Blair
Location	The Belmont, Belmont Road, Whitstable, Kent CT5 1QP
Kickoff	14/04/2026 19:45

WHITSTABLE TOWN  3-1  HOLLANDS & BLAIR
Presence & Co Southern Counties East Football League Premier Division
Tuesday 14 April 2026
Stephen McCartney reports from Belmont Road

WHITSTABLE TOWN coach Taylor Couldry says playing a side that were desperately fighting to stake a late play-off place was the perfect cocktail for his side preparing for the Kent Senior Trophy Final on Sunday.
 

Darren Blackburn’s Hollands & Blair pulled out of the Southern Counties East Football League Premier Division play-off race in their penultimate game, despite taking the lead through an emphatic counter-attacking finish from striker
Diekonifeoluwa Falade.

Jamie Coyle’s Whitstable Town, who claimed the league title with a 2-2 draw at Rusthall on 24 March, restored parity, through a hooked finish from centre-half Tyler Hatton, following a corner just before the interval.

The Oystermen put in a vastly improved performance after the interval and second striker, Joe Healy, 39, swept home his 13^th goal of the season just 58 seconds into the second-half before visiting goalkeeper Daniel Ellis gifted Bradley Schafer his 27^th goal of the season to kill the game off.

“I think we came in with a purpose today to be mindful of our Cup Final on Sunday, so it was a brilliant tune-up game,” said Couldry.

“We’ve got an opponent that are fighting desperately to stake a late play-off place so it was the perfect cocktail in terms of preparing for a big game on Sunday.

“It was a flat start. It took us a little bit of time to get into the rhythm of the game today. I thought they imposed themselves tremendously at the start. I thought they had real power and pace in the front areas and that was something that we had to contend with.

“I think that maybe one or two that played today, we were possibly looking at to get some minutes, however, they played on Saturday a large number of minutes across the last couple of games, so we should’ve been a little bit more mindful of them and that’s possibly why it took them a little bit of time after playing minutes on Saturday to then get straight back into the team and start today.

“That’s probably why we were a little bit flat and there were a couple of players that were playing in different positions because we’re just looking at things for Sunday, so yes a little bit disjointed the first half and it took our boys some time to get into the game.”

Hollands & Blair coach Ian Draycott added: “The majority of the game was really good, really pleasing. We probably carried on with our good form that we’ve been showing pretty much since Christmas.

“We knew it was going to be a tough game and Whitstable were going to cause us problems but I thought first half especially, we were excellent.  We had a brilliant shape and then on the counter-attack I thought our front boys caused them problems with our pace, had a couple of opportunities and probably just didn’t take them at the right times.”

Hollands & Blair were without 12-goal leading goalscorer Kane Rowland (away) and Callum Flynn (concussion).  They also picked up knocks during the game with right-back Luke Exall (groin), winger Muhammed Cham (tired muscular injury) and centre-half Kristian Wigg suffered a bang to the head and was taken off early in the second half with fears of concussion.

Since claiming the title with a draw at Jockey Farm, Whitstable Town then lost their impressive 26-match unbeaten run by losing 1-0 at home to Fisher but have bounced back by beating relegated side Hythe Town (3-1) and Coyle made three changes to his side that came away from Holmesdale with a 4-0 win at the weekend.

Since holding Rusthall to a goal-less draw on 30 March, Hollands & Blair defeated Snodland Town (3-0) and Kennington (3-0) and they put in a decent first half performance on the counter-attack here tonight but dropped off after the break.

The start of tonight’s game was very flat from both sides as it felt like a typical end-of-season game with nothing left to play for, as Coyle led the club to its first League title since Marc Seager’s men claimed their first Kent League title back in 2007.

Hollands & Blair formed a guard-of-honour for the Oystermen before kick-off and the Gillingham-based side created their first opening with 17 minutes and 28 seconds on the clock.

Holding midfielder Reece Gillies was given a non-contested drop ball by referee Tyler Diminieux before recycling the ball back into the box where centre-half Charlie Weston sent his header over the far post from 10-yards.

Direct Whitstable Town went route-one, as they created their first opening with 19 minutes and 43 seconds on the clock.

Healy drilled a long ball in behind Hollands & Blair’s right-back Exall to release high left-wing-back Malachai Belboda.  He put in a cross from within the channel and Schafer’s header was blocked and 32-goal striker Javaun Splatt hooked his overhead kick over the crossbar from a central position eight-yards from goal.

Couldry said: “It was audacious from Splatty but it was a really good moment. A great ball from Malachai. I think that’s one thing we’ve been really challenging or wing-backs to do and to bring Mal back into the side from injuries and international duty, he adds real quality in those areas and Splatty’s in so much form and confidence throughout the season, he’s going to want to try those things to up his tally.”

Whitstable Town played out from the back, often spraying it along the deck between their back three but countless balls were drilled forward, bypassing midfield and Mikey Dalton and Connor Wilkins must’ve suffered neckache as balls were drilled over their heads at every given opportunity.

Hollands & Blair were guilty of a glaring miss, with 22:19 on the clock, however.

Gillies stretched to ping a diagonal pass out to right-winger Muhammed Cham, who cut into the penalty area and puled the ball back for Falade, who lacked composure and swept his first-time right-footed looping over the crossbar from eight-yards.

“I thought we had a really bright front three again and Manny (Oluwasemo) just playing off just behind,” said Draycott.

“Deiko was really bright. We knew if we could get into their back three with our pace and cause problems with our trickery down the sides, if we could get an out ball on that then that would be brilliant.

“We managed to get a couple of opportunities. Dieko’s good movement to hold off and just unfortunate he couldn’t get the connection he wanted.”

Couldry said: “They were dangerous on the counter-attack and they were very, very bright on reacting to the moments that they could then launch their attacks in behind.  I think we took some time to be able to adjust to that. There was a little bit of ball-watching in the first half and we just had to react a little bit quicker to that kind of threat.  They were unfortunate not to score that one.”

Hollands & Blair centre-half Charlie Weston – who kept Splatt in his pocket during the first half – had a couple of bites of the cherry following Blair’s first of three corners, meeting Gillies’ deep delivery in the from the left but sending his left-footed shot over the crossbar.

Hollands & Blair deserved their lead when it arrived with 29 minutes and 12 seconds on the clock, courtesy of a counter-attack.

Falade picked the ball up close to the half-way line and waited for support from left-winger Dadigilao Carvalho on the outside.

Carvalho then sped down the left, cut into the penalty area and reached the corner of the six-yard box before drilling his low shot towards goal.  The ball was blocked by the foot of goalkeeper Joshua Robson at his near-post and the ball rolled out for Flade to emphatically drill his right-footed shot into the roof of the net from six-yards.

“Pretty similar to one of our goals on Saturday. It’s something that’s a strength of ours,” said Draycott.

“Gil Carvalho has come (from Hythe Town) and brought that little bit of quality and calmness in the final third and he’s gone down the outside again and right place, right time for Dieko.”

Couldry added: “It didn’t look great in real time and it happened so quickly. Our analysis on the sides, with the iPad watching it back, it’s not a great moment from us.

“I think Healy tries to have an attempt on goal all in one moment. It probably wasn’t on and from there their pace and power on the counter attack, I think a couple of players have run off our boys on the transition. I don’t think we were proactive enough to deal with that.

“Yes, Joshua has made a great save for the first bit but we need to be livelier in the box and make sure we snuffed out any threats and we didn’t at that time.

“I think when you pull off a save like that as a young goalie, you are relying on a little bit of help from the rest of your players to make sure that people don’t follow up.”

Attacking midfielder Emmanuel Oluwasemo cut the ball back from within the right-channel to Falade, who cracked a right-footed drive from 18-yards, which  was comfortably caught in Robson’s midriff.

However, Whitstable Town grabbed their equaliser, with 40 minutes and 23 seconds on the clock, following their first of six flag-kicks.

Schafer swung the ball in from the left with his right-foot towards the back post, where Healy knocked the ball down and the ball bounced for Hatton to hook his right-footed shot over a crowd of payers into the roof of the net from inside the six-yard box.

“Tyler’s been really aggressive in the box. He’s been quite refreshing,” said Couldry.

“I’ve spoken in previous interviews about how much more we want to be on set-pieces because they’re a big part of our game and he scored from one on Saturday and he’s got another one because he’s on the move and he’s alive in the box and he had two or three moments like that throughout the game on corners as well.”

Draycott added: “Frustration from our part because we pride ourselves on our set-pieces both attacking and defending and if anything there’s a little bit of a mix-up, two going for the same ball and it’s dropped into an area where we have somebody nine times out of 10 and unfortunately their centre-halves got onto a bouncing ball and finished it well.”

Both coaches were asked what was said within their dressing rooms at the interval.

Couldry said: “I think we recognised the point you made about being flat and we needed to make a change. We had to take Ricardo (Thompson) off. He’s played 87 minutes on Saturday after being out injured for a while and I think today how intense the game was from the start, we just needed to make sure we protected him as well.

“We made that slight adjustment and also we had to really look at ourselves in possession because they were another team that sort of sat in that mid-block against us and we had to try to find a way to contend with that because although it’s been effective this year playing forwards and being direct, we have to add those layers as much as we can because when we do play teams that are physical and can compete aerially, we’ve got to have another layer to also be able to be successful in their half.

“We’ve done as much as we possibly can to focus the boys and make sure it’s not just flip-flop time, we’re on holiday sort of thing. 

“We’ve done everything we’ve possibly can, whether that’s setting targets and big up the opposition and what they’re fighting for and how much it means to the fans that we’re playing in front of and all those different aspects just to keep the boys up to the optimum level of focus for games, just insuring that they’re not turning up and thinking ‘what is the point?’ because there’s a point to everything that we’re doing in these last few games!”

Draycott added: “More of the same, really pleased to be honest. I thought we came out (for the first half) well. We were comfortable. We had good shape off the ball, attacking wise caused them problems and had some moments.

“So going into the second half, it was more of the same. We had a feeling they would tweak something, just by the fact I thought we were pretty comfortable.  They didn’t cause us any real major issues.

“They obviously made a sub at half-time and slightly gone a little bit more positive second half and I think it was in the balance at the beginning of that second half and we were just looking for a moment either way, where there’s a bit of quality from our front boys or from a bit of a moment from them going the other way.”

A clearance from Whitstable keeper Robson was charged down by Falade, who went to pieces and the chance was gone as soon as Carvalho committed a foul on the edge of the six-yard box after pinball inside the Whitstable Town penalty area inside the opening 13 seconds.

Coyle brought on Jayden Boulton as a high left-wing-back and he made an instant impact, as clinical Whitstable Town took only 58 seconds to take the lead.

Boulton drilled a long ball along the artificial turf, which split open Exall and released Splatt, who charged into the box before putting it on a plate for Healy, who swept his left-footed shot past Ellis from eight-yards into the left-corner.

“I actually think Jayden’s actually tried to really think about where he’s going to put that ball and he almost looked like he absolutely hammered it into the flats in behind but it settled really well for Splatty,” said Couldry.

“He had a good change of gear, change of pace and it’s a brilliant pass for him and a really good decision because most number nines on 30-goals a season would be thinking about trying to shoot from that angle and fair play to him, he’s cut it back and found Joe Healy and it’s an excellent finish from a seasoned pro.”

Draycott added: “It was almost pretty similar to the pull-back we had from Mo (Cham) for Dieko in the first half. It was exactly the same chance that Splatt pulled it back for Healy in the second half.

“It’s that small margines was probably why they’re champions and we’re not. It is those small moments in either box that can really define your season.

"Unfortunately, we didn’t have that killer instinct when Dieko went through. I’d back him to score when he got a shot away. Just decision making, put it to someone else, when a greedy number nine scores, I think.”

Draycott admitted he was expecting a reaction from Coyle’s men.

“Yes, I expected something to come out. I don’t think they showed that reaction straight away. I think it was probably an error on our behalf more than anything.

“Like I say, both boxes, we haven’t capitalised at one end and we’ve gone up the other end and probably let a long ball give them an opportunity where first half and the majority of the season, we’ve dealt with those long balls.”

Schafer launched just the one long throw into the Hollands & Blair penalty area, with Splatt meeting it with a looping header, which was plucked out of the air by Ellis’ two outstretched arms high above his head for a comfortable catch.

Whitstable Town were rather clinical in front of goal, scoring three goals from four attempts on target, as Ellis’ gift killed the game off as a contest, with 12 minutes and 59 seconds on the clock.

William Thomas - who plays in the centre of a three-man central defence - drilled a long ball out of defence straight down the middle.  Schafer turned Blair left-back Simon Kabamba before spraying the ball out to Boulton within the left-channel.

The impressive Boulton whipped in a great cross, the ball was cleared out to Schafer, who drilled a right-footed volley through Ellis’ legs (as he attempted to collect the ball low down) from the edge of the penalty area, the ball nestling into the back of the net to kill off Blair’s slender play-off hopes.

“He scores so many of those type of goals this year Schafer and his knowhow around the edge of the box is very good and it’s unfortunate for the goalie. No one really likes to see that but when you’re on the good end of those types of things, you take it,” admitted Couldry.

“Listen, Schafer has scored bundles of goals like that this year, so he deserves that one as well.”

Draycott added: “Dan’s held his hands up. You back him to save it. He hasn’t made that error probably all season but unfortunately it’s just came on tonight but if you look at their three goals, set-piece, corner, long ball into the channel , a mistake and three real chances are things that changed the game.”

Hollands & Blair’s best moments during this game was when they ran at Whitstable’s defence and kept the ball on the deck – the way that this game should be played!

Falde slipped the ball through to substitute right-winger Murisiku Batula, who lacked composure and drilled his right-footed shot across keeper Robson and harmlessly past the far post from a tight angle (14:34).

Draycott said: “Although I don’t think we were as good as the first half. We still did have opportunities and on paper probably more opportunists than Whitstable did, especially in key times in the game, where I felt yes, if we did go and get one, then I think we could get our tails up again and have that little bit of belief to go into that final third of the game.”

Couldry said: “We really matched the intensity and drive, exactly what the game needed in the early stages of that second half and when you come across the champions, it is hard with them looking at a big hill to climb and obviously they gave it a right go because they have to.  They’re in that position, they want to try to get the three points and I think they’ll be a little bit more disappointed seeing the other results tonight but it is tough playing against a really seasoned championship team.

“It’s hard to come back from that against a really strong team like ourselves, so I felt the boys great in confidence after that and our stuff away from the ball was a lot better as well in terms of organisation and I think that’s what carried us through to the win at the end.”

Belboda reached the corner flag before putting in a deep cross, which was sublimely controlled by Schafer, who flicked the ball up before cracking a left-footed volley screaming across Ellis’ left shoulder and harmlessly past the far post from a very tight angle.

Oluwasemo slipped the ball inside to Carvalho, who cut the ball onto his right-foot before drilling his low shot past the left-hand post from 35-yards, which was the final chance of the game, as early as 20:20 on the clock.

There was even a floodlight failure which lasted only 13 SECONDS (35:05-35:18), which brought cheers from the crowd of 471 inside Belmont Road, which was all the excitement the home crowd could take after looking up in the air for most of the match!

“Well, their whole management team and players were screaming for the game to be abandoned and that’s probably the last thing we needed, so I’m not sure what happened.  There was a little bit of a technical fault. Everyone had a good laugh about it, something to talk about for sure,” said Couldry.

Draycott added: “It was quite a stop-start game to be honest. I think all the way through both first half (52:07) and second half (49:47), it was very stop-start. There were a lot of injuries and knocks and substitutions. It was very stop-start all the way through. I don’t think that helped and supported us but at the same time, you’ve got to play the game and when you’re opportunities come, you’ve got to take them!”

Whitstable Town have picked up 86 points (27 wins, five draws and three defeats) and complete their League campaign with a trip to Corinthian on the final day of the season.

Elsewhere tonight, Punjab United beat Fisher 2-1 in Gravesend, Tunbridge Wells were held to a 2-2 draw at home to Faversham Strike Force, while Stansfeld clawed themselves off the foot of the table with a shock 1-0 win at Rusthall.

Fisher (64 points from 34 of 36 games), Larkfield & New Hythe (59 points from 34 games), Bearsted (59 points from 34 games) and Rusthall (56 points from 33 games) remain in the play-off zone tonight.

Punjab United (56 points from 33 games), Hollands & Blair (54 points – 17 wins, three draws and 15 defeats) and Phoenix Sports (52 points from 34 games) make up the top eight.

Hollands & Blair complete their campaign with a home game against Gary Alexander’s Erith & Belvedere on 25 April.

“I haven’t had a look (at the League table) to be completely honest but a couple have said results (didn’t go our way) and we had an outside chance going into the last couple of games but we can be proud of where we’ve come, especially since just prior to Christmas,” said Draycott.

“We’ve only got one game to go. We’ve just got to do our job and make sure we finish the season strong and get those three points on the last game of the season.

“We don’t play this Saturday, we’ve got no fixture, so by the time we go into the last game of the season, we’ll know where we are but that won’t change how we approach the last game of the season and what we’re looking to achieve.

“We’ll be looking to go into that last home game full of confidence and to make sure we get a good win.

“We’ve really kicked on (since Christmas) and I think we’re quite happy with where we’ve ended up throughout the season but it defiantly gives us a brilliant platform with the squad we have now got in the changing room to kick on for next year.”

With his side an impressive 22 points clear of Fisher, Couldry admitted: “I mean people may argue it shows maybe a lack of competitiveness in the League this year in terms of challenging for the title but I think for us we’ve always treated it as one-game-at-a time and if you look after the pennies, the pounds will look after you. Is that the way the saying goes? Well, something like that? We just want to keep ticking off wins.

“We set the boys a target in the second half of the season way before we actually clinched the title and it was all about accumulating the most amount of points out of our last half of the season and now we’ve won it, our aim is to finish the best version of champions that we possibly can be.

“I think we can better the totals the likes of Faversham achieved last season (88 points from 38 games), with more games to do so as well, so we’re strongly focused on that.

“Our last game of the season (at Corinthian) is a chance to achieve that goal and finish on 89 points, that’s the maximum we can achieve now and that’s been our target for the last two games, knowing that we’re one step closer to it.”

Preparations are being made at Maidstone United for Sunday’s Kent Senior Trophy Final between Whitstable Town and Punjab United – the pitch will be elevated into the air for a start and there will be no football played in the middle of the park by either team!!!

The ball will be thrown in the air by Punjab’s Chris Edwards and Stephen Ratcliff and Schafer and Lewis Chambers (if selected) will do the same for Whitstable Town, who lost to Larkfield & New Hythe in last year’s showpiece final.

“They’re (Punjab) going to be so motivated for that game on Sunday. If I compare it to our mentality last year, although we were motivated, we certainly were distracted by the prospect of Wembley,” said Couldry.

“You just look tonight at Punjab with Rusthall and Hollands & Blair losing around them, they’ve got a real opportunity to get in the play-offs this season with a game in hand as well on Bearsted.

“When you look at the table tonight and they’ll be looking at it and seeing the results around them and knowing they’ve got a big Cup Final on Sunday, they are going to be as high as they possibly can be tonight and in training on Thursday and bouncing into the Gallagher on Sunday, so we have to expect that, hopefully that may give us some sort of advantage that they want to come out after us because we’ve struggled at times to play against teams that just try to defend for their lives.

“I think that really focuses the group as well, knowing that we’ve got the toughest version of our opponents possible.  They haven’t got Wembley as a distraction, unfortunately for them. The prospect of play-offs is well within sight and now they’ve got no more games to focus on the league, they can park that to one side and focus all their energy in achieving silverware for Punjab this season.

“So we’re aware of all those things and we really want to big that up to the boys because we believe that they thrive under the big game pressure. It certainly not something that they shy away from and they’re going to make sure they’re really focused on achieving a double for themselves and us and the for the fans this year.”

When asked whether Coyle knows his starting XI to face Chipie Sian’s awful throwball team, Couldry replied: “We want to see how people are after today and manage what people do on Thursday in terms of workload but it’s the strongest position we’ve been in terms of the whole squad.

“You’re totally right, it brings its own headaches. Sometimes we don’t want to fall into the habit of overthinking the line-up and the squad selection, so I think that’s what’s been handy having these games to our advantage, where we’ve now won the league, to be able to get that selection spot on, so we’ve got some really good answers tonight. We’ll look at it again on Thursday and we’ll relentlessly talk as a management team from this time I finish this interview to three o’clock on Sunday about who’s playing.

“I think we had some idea before tonight, which is why we tried to look at certain things but it’s certainly thrown in a few different ideas in our head about what is the right thing to do.

“We’ll do our analysing and prep on Punjab as we usually would and how they’re shaping up going into this Cup game, what we need technically and physically for the game and who are going to be the right players to suit that.

“I think they’re two really exciting direct teams that like to play forwards early and like to get the fans’ up and put the opposition defence on edge.

“However, it’s a massive pitch at Maidstone. There are going to be moments when players are tired or it presents itself for us to have time on the ball where there’s space, so we have got to have the other layer of when we have possession and when we do have time on the ball that we’re just not aimlessly booting it forwards without any purpose or any way of disturbing the opposition.

“So we’ve got to make sure we add those layers, we give them the ideas where we can cause the opposition problems, who are the players we want to feed the ball into.”

Whitstable Town: Joshua Robson, Ricardo Thompson (Jayden Boulton 46), Malachai Belboda (Jack Peters 80), William Thomas (Jake McIntyre 83), Finn O’Mara, Tyler Hatton, Connor Wilkins (Finley Cotton 69), Mikey Dalton, Javaun Splatt, Joe Healy (Roland Sithole 68), Bradley Schafer.

Goals: Tyler Hatton 41, Joe Healy 46, Bradley Schafer 58

Booked: Ricardo Thompson 36, Tyler Hatton 37, Matt Longhurst (assistant manager) 45

Hollands & Blair: Daniel Ellis, Luke Exall (Mobalaji Dawodu 90), Simon Kabamba (Ollie Gray 87), Reece Gillies (Bobby Dunn 75), Charlie Weston, Kristian Wigg (George Byrne 54), Dadigilao Carvalho, Matthew Gething, Diekonifeoluwa Falade, Emmanuel Oluwasemo, Muhammed Cham (Murisiku Batula 24).

Goal: Diekonifeoluwa Falade 30

Attendance: 471
Referee: Mr Tyler Diminieux
Assistants: Mr Bailey Williams & Mr Michael Donnelly