Kingstonian 0, East Thurrock United 1

WEDNESDAY evening's win in Surrey against high-flying Kingstonian didn't just lift Rocks up a place in the lower reaches of the Isthmian Premier it was a morale-boosting first league win for the club since joint managers Marc Harrison and Liam Wallace took over.

And it was some measure of revenge for a 6-0 FA Trophy defeat the Ks inflicted on Rocks earlier in the season.

The hero for Rocks was captain Arthur Janata who put in a man of the match performance to deny Kingstonian the chance to move up to fourth place by ending their run of five consecutive home wins.

The hosts started brightly with the wide men causing particular problems down the flanks and the front two of Elliot Buchannan and Daniel Ajakaiye looking sharp in attack.

On 10 minutes Buchanan headed over a cross from Bryant Akono Bilongo via a deflection and from the resulting corner Jananta had to be on his toes to turn a header against the post.

After withstanding the pressure of the first 20 minutes Rocks started to find their feet in the game, the front three of Johnny Ashman, Jake Gordon and Thomas Stagg always looked like causing problems on the break and created two or three half chances that did not really trouble Tolfrey in the Ks' goal.

On the stroke of half time Kingstonian were awarded a dubious free kick just outside the box, with Gordon judged to have fouled the opposing playing when it looked like he had been fouled himself, to add insult to injury he picked up a booking for his troubles. The freekick from Buchanan was well dealt with easily by Janata.

The second half started as the first finished with Rocks looking to frustrate the Ks' forward momentum and looking to break.

The frustration certainly appeared to be showing and the K's were running out of ideas. Their play in the final third and final balls was lacking the quality of the first stanza and on the break the Rocks were looking at lot more threatening and the breaks were becoming more frequent.

And on the hour a good break down the right ended with Ashman pulling the ball back to the edge of the box where it bounced up nicely for the onrushing Oli Spooner to strike the ball over the stranded Rob Tolfrey into the net via a slight deflection.

As Kingston ran out of ideas and were thwarted by the hard-working Rocks Gordon had two good chances to add to their lead but missed them.

That allowed one last charge from Kingstonian who spent the last ten minutes (and six minutes of added time) on the attack but Janata pulled of some outstanding saves to keep them at bay and in the end the final whistle brought long awaited celebration for East Thurrock with a first league win in five attempts.