Tilbury 1, Hadley 0

TILBURY are in the second-round proper of the Isuzu FA Trophy for the first time in 43 years after Saturday's (25 October) home triumph against Southern League Division One Central Hadley.

The first match in charge for George Christou and Jack Toghli proved to be a history-making one, capitalising on the emotional and winning farewell of Marc Harrison and Liam Wallace against high-flying Wroxham, though the opening stages gave little indication of what was to come.

New signing, Tobias Braney, made his debut as he started in place of the cup-tied Hassan Nalbant but it was the Bricks who made a better start to the game, coming close to opening the scoring through Lenny Asamoah, who raced through on goal, but blazed his effort over the crossbar.

Hadley were then awarded a penalty after 15 minutes when Richard Ennin was brought down by Sam Carter just inside the 18-yard box. Captain, Luke Alfano stepped up for the visitors, but he fired his spot-kick wide of the target.

The away side's pressure continued throughout the first half, as a deep corner was whipped in towards Lenny Asamoah, who directed his header goalward. However, Harry Fairs dived across brilliantly to keep the scoreline level.

Asamoah was involved once again when Hadley put the ball in the net on the stroke of half-time. But the linesman was quick to raise his flag, and the goal was ruled out.

Following the break, Tilbury began to grow into the game and created chances of their own to worry the Hadley defence.

Tobias Braney set the ball across brilliantly to Kieran Jones, who saw his strike from the edge of the area, whistle past the near post.

The deadlock was finally broken after 49 minutes, and the goal went the way of the Dockers.

Medo Konte's shot from just inside the area was blocked, and the ball bounced out to the righthand side, where Forbes was waiting. He drilled his attempt low, and the ball struck the post and rolled across the face of goal before finally crawling over the line.

Late on in the game, Hadley threw men forward in hopes of sending the tie to penalties, but they didn't manage to test Fairs or find a way past the defence, which produced a fantastic second-half performance.

SQUAD: Fairs, Reeve, Hayes ©, Phillips, Konte, Carter (Brocklebank), Reynolds, Jones (Spooner), Forbes (Aderibigbe), Trendall, Braney (Akintunde). SUBS UNUSED: Ward. GOAL: Tyler Forbes.

Dockers are back in action on Tuesday (28 October) when Dockers host Braintree Town in the BBC Essex Senior Cup.