The reserves entered this semi final encounter following a good away league win at Bearsted the previous Saturday. Cray Valley fielded a strong side with former Maidstone United player Rory Hill in their ranks. Whitstable were quickly out of the blocks and created the early chances in the game, with Cray struggling to adapt to the high press and losing the ball several times in their own half. Young town player Glenn Bain (17 years old) was seeing a lot of the ball in the early stages and his pace and technical ability was causing real problems for Cray. Whitstable created a good chance that fell to Muhammed Cham, when a good run from Bain slipped Cham in down the left hand side and he cut in, but put the ball just past the far post.

Whitstable soon broke through, after a good run down the right hand side by Ifeanyi David who cut the ball back to Izaak Sargeant and he unselfishly passed to Jamie Purdy who finished calmly into the bottom left hand corner. The back four of Morgan Howson, Kyle Wisker, Jack Sutton and Callum Mason looked assured and prevented many counter attacks from Cray Valley. Whitstable looked comfortable going into half time and would have been disappointed at only having a one goal lead.

Whitstable started the second half as they left off and soon grabbed their second goal of the game to give themselves some breathing space. A great diagonal switch from captain Wisker found the feet of Cham and with a great touch, he drove into the box and shot over the keeper and it finally found its way into the net to put Whitstable 2-0 up. This goal seemed to lift Cray Valley into action and they soon started to fight back. A couple of dangerous crosses from the left and right put the home defence on the back foot and some good clearances prevented any further danger. For the last 15 minutes the visitors started to pile on a lot of pressure without creating any really threatening chances, with Wisker and Sutton holding the back four together.

Whitstable held firm and managed to see the game out for a 2-0 win. A great first half display and a battling second half performance was enough to see the Reserves through to the final where they will face Lordswood Reserves on Wednesday 15th April at a venue to be confirmed.

Team: Ryan Birch, Morgan Howson, Callum Mason, Robert May, Jack Sutton, Kyle Wisker, Muhammed Cham, Jamie Purdy, Izaak Sergeant, Glenn Bain, Ifeanyi David.
Subs: Peter Sharpless, Kieran Jones, David Senga.
Unused: Josh Algar, James Foster.

Thoughts from manager Josh Algar:
“A great team performance tonight on a tricky pitch at times. I thought the players handled the nerves of the semi final extremely well and settled into the game quicker than Cray Valley. We had a game plan to press from the front and stop them playing, as we knew they had some good players, especially with the likes of Rory Hill in their ranks as he is very experienced at Isthmian League level. We played some very good football in the first half and I thought we deserved our lead going into the break. The second half we could have played better, but it was pleasing to see us doing the other side of the game, out of possession, as that is something we have lacked at times during the season. It’s a great achievement for our young side in our first year together. I was more pleased to see our youngsters, 17 year old Glenn Bain and academy player Muhammed Cham, perform so well. We have a lot of youngsters in the team who have really come on this year and to do it in a semi final just shows how much they are progressing. We are looking forward to this final, which we all know will be an extremely tough fixture against an experienced Lordswood side.”