Dartford 1 Welling United 0

Match 65/11/952 - Sunday, 13 May 2012 - Conference South Play-off Final

Dartford (1) 1 Noble 3
Welling United (0) 0
Att. 4,088

Entrance: £6 Senior
Programme: £3.00
Mileage: 56/4,890

Match Report

Dartford emerged from the Conference South play-off to stake their place in the Conference for the first time since 1986 when the division was known as the Gola League. As the team that finished second behind champions Woking, it is fitting that they were the team to win a tight encounter against a Welling side that didn’t have the cutting edge to complement the amount of possession they enjoyed.

In front of a sell-out 4,000-plus crowd, a fantastic turn-out considering the mouth-watering spectacle that the final day of the Premiership promised (and lived-up) to be, Dartford struck in just three minutes, Lee Noble stunning the visitors with a well struck shot from 25 yards that nestled in the bottom left hand corner.

That was the beginning of an opening period of 20 minutes in which Welling could not get any sort of foothold in the game. Elliott Bradbrook headed wide from a long throw and crosses into the box were causing Wings’ keeper Craig Holloway and the thousand Welling fans at the opposite end several heart stopping moments.

Going into the last 20 minutes of the half and still just the goal behind, Welling inched their way back into the game and it took a superb saving tackle from Tom Bonner when Loick Pires was about to pull the trigger on the visitors’ best chance of the half.

This was actually quite a defining point in the game as the pattern was set with Welling’s dangerous pairing of Pires and Louis Cumbers well shackled all afternoon by a disciplined Darts back four with Lee Burns and Luke Wilkinson outstanding.

Cumbers managed to get free just the once but his cut back to Joe Healy who blazed over the bar to once again fail to work Louis Wells in the Dartford goal.

The second half continued in much the same vein with chances at a premium, most of them going Dartford’s way as Welling enjoyed their 50% of the possession but by the end of the game Wells had not had a shot in anger to save.

The whistle blew to the jubilation of the home support who have enjoyed massive success with a strong support base since their move to Princes Park. The club are ready for the Conference and I guess there were more than a few sore heads among their fans on Monday morning when they woke up to the realisation that those nice comfortable Ryman and Conference South trips to places such as Tonbridge are no more and now they are faced with 600 mile round trips to places such as Gateshead and Barrow but with the equivalent excitement that ex-League clubs such as Lincoln City and Stockport County now stand on an equal footing alongside their local rivals Ebbsfleet.

Good luck to Dartford, it is wonderful to see two Kent sides in the premier non-league Division, just one more step away from the Football League and who is to say that the last step is one too far.