Tilbury 4, Buckhurst Hill 1

DESPITE conceding a very early goal, Tilbury recovered and, in the end, comfortably cruised to victory in today's (Saturday, 3 August) FA Cup extra preliminary round clash – and had the delight of seeing striker Sam Bantick complete a hat-trick with a goal from within his own half!

The start of the competitive season saw Essex Senior League Buckhurst Hill arrive at Chadfields with expectations of an upset against their Isthmian North rivals, who lifted the county league title last year and impressively moved back up the non-league pyramid at the first time of asking after relegation in 2022-23.

And those aspirations were boosted as early as the first minute when the visitors won a penalty and George Thompson stepped up to slot home into the bottom right corner.

Things might have got worse for Dockers on 15 minutes when a scramble in a packed box saw the ball fall to Tagine Youcef, but home stopper Christian North stood tall and made the save to keep the deficit down.

His efforts were rewarded on 36 minutes when fine play from Lewis Manor, who was producing an exemplary display as a striker holding up the ball, set up Bantick with a well-weighted pass and he rammed the ball home.

And things got even better for the home side moments before the break when Harry Donovan slotted the ball through to the speedy Alex Akrofi who cut inside and drilled a powerful shot past visiting keeper Toby Smith.

Dockers kept the pressure on in the second half.

Resuming after the break with the advantage, Tilbury looked a class act, dominating possession and using every inch of Chadfields to keep hold of the ball.

If there was a criticism, it was they struggled to produce the final pass to open up Hill's defence.

However, that became less of an issue eight minutes after the resumption when a melee resulted in the visitors' young defender Ethan Daniels being sent off.

He had been given something of a torrid afternoon by Manor and when the two clashed in midfield a coming together tested his experience.

Manor, and possibly another Docker, challenged him physically and with an arm across his chest, he lashed out, catching the veteran Manor who fell to the floor and young referee David Lambert possibly caught a con and, having gone though a lengthy consultation with his assistants, issued a red to the anguished Hill player who pleased that he had been hard done to.

Reducing Hill to ten men made their task almost impossible and Tilbury eased through the closing minutes of the game with increasing dominance.

Ironically, it was a rare Buckhurst Hill attack on 85 minutes, when an angled shot flash past North's far post, that sparked a quick Tilbury repost.

Dockers countered down the left flank and Dan Trendall danced into the box, holding the ball up before picking out an unmarked Bantick who had all the time in the world to set himself and fire home from around 12 yards.

That was game over, but there was still time, in added time, for Bantick to complete his hat-trick with an audacious goal, picking the ball up close to the half way line, looking up and seeing Smith off his line and drifting a lob over his head into the back of the net.

It could well prove to the the FA's goal of the round!

Sam Bantick celebrates after the final whistle with the matchday mascots.

Dockers boss Marc Harrison was delighted with the win, though he does not yet know who his team will be facing in the next round at home on Saturday, 17 August as potential visitors Stanway and Maldon & Tiptree drew their tie today 0-0.

Harrison said: "I'm really happy today. It's been a bit of a disjointed pre-season with lots of holidays and, believe it or not lots of injuries, so we have been up against it and had only 13 players available today.

"But it's a good job done and the team, performance wise, going 1-0 down so early, showed a good reaction, it really was positive. I'm really, really pleased."

Looking forward to next week's Isthmian North league opener against Ipswich Wanderers at Chadfields, he added: "We will be looking to do what we did today, giving the fans something to cheer about.

"But we take each game at a time and now we will spend seven days preparing to take on Ipswich."