Deal Town manager Steve King on Ben Chapman as midfielder scores on his 300th club appearance with FA Cup tie at Chatham Town on the horizon this Saturday

Ben Chapman has made his 300th Deal Town appearance - and manager Steve King believes there will be plenty more milestones to come for the midfielder.

Chapman marked reaching the landmark with a goal in the Hoops’ FA Trophy second qualifying round 3-2 home loss to Ashford last weekend.

Alongside older brother Tom Chapman, Ben has been a crucial player at the Charles Sports Ground over a number of years now.

“To play 300 games for a non-league club now is, not unheard of, but it’s becoming a lot rarer," said King.

“He’s got 85 goals from midfield. He doesn’t take penalties or free-kicks so that’s an unbelievable record. I’ve got all the time in the world for him.

“There’s a lot of young players now that get ahead of themselves. There’s a lot of stuff on social media and, to put it bluntly, people thinking they’re better than they are.

“Someone like Ben Chapman - for seven, eight or nine years - has just turned up every single week and done his job. There’s not many scoring as many goals as he does from midfield.

"We absolutely love him. He loves playing for the football club.

"He has got a lot more miles left in the tank.

“At some point, we’ll, hopefully, be celebrating him getting 100 goals for the club and I don’t think these will be his last milestones in a black and white shirt. He’s an absolute pleasure to manage.

“He’s a top bloke and a top player.”

Alongside Chapman, defender Jack Paxman was also on target as Deal went down to Lloyd Hume’s outfit for the second game running, having suffered a 2-1 league loss at Homelands last Tuesday.

King said: “It was a strange game, playing Ashford back-to-back.

“We made a lot of changes. We made seven and they made a couple.

“It was an entertaining game. We didn’t play very