Dartford 2-1 Eastbourne Borough

The foundation of successful teams is a defence as solid as the Rock of Gibraltar, and as fluid as mercury in a thermometer.

It has taken two sets of opposition forwards 184 minutes to get a goal against the Darts and this event was one of comic-book proportions.

It is highly likely that this was high on the post-match agenda!

Again it was a pleasure to see the ball knocked around the deck and the appreciative crowd of 1,240 were held in rapt pleasure and responded with rippling applause.

This is as near as the Darts have come to those heady four seasons when Peter Taylor's charges set an unprecedented four consecutive seasons of producing more than 100 goals.

Dartford use both wings to good effect with Richard Graham the perfect foil to the Ryan Hayes variations.

It was on 19 minutes when Darts opened their account Graham found Elliot Bradbrook, whose deft touch found Charlie Sheringham and he applied the final touch.

In attempting to intercept, Eastbourne defender Sonny Cobbs got injured and was replaced by former Dartford player Ian Pullman.

Dartford were now playing exhibition football, which continued after the interval.

In one raid, it was three against one as Darts broke through.

Although the chance was spurned, Dartford established the vital two-goal cushion on 62 minutes when another Graham cross was hit home from a couple of feet by Adam Green.

It was all plain sailing from then on until the Mickey Mouse ending, but by then it was too late for Eastbourne to spoil the party.

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Dartford: Young, Jones,, Green, Bonner, Goodacre, Champion, Hayes (Harris), Wallis (Noble), Sheringham (Burns), Bradbrook, Graham. Subs not used: Cooper, Ibrahim. Att: 1,240