GoCardless Kent Veterans Cup Final: Barnehurst 1 Aylesford 3

Aylesford made up for last year’s disappointment by winning the GoCardless Kent Veterans Cup final.

They beat Barnehurst 3-1 at Sevenoaks Town FC on Friday night, thanks to goals from player-of-the-match Georgi Kosev, Miles Cornwell and Jimmy Matthews.

Rikki Cable cancelled out Kosev’s first-half opener as Barnehurst swiftly levelled but Aylesford controlled the second half and could comfortably have won by more.

They had a series of chances to kill the game, including a missed penalty by Matthews in added time, but he was soon celebrating after adding the clincher.

Aylesford were spurred on by last season’s 2-0 final defeat by Metrogas, a game they could have had sewn up by half-time, such was their early dominance.

After working hard to get back to the final, they were determined to make it pay.

“You don’t get to come to these finals very often,” said manager Craig Russell.

“We’ve now had two and you don’t know if you’ll get a third.

“When you play vets’ football, there are 35-year-olds coming in, and we’re in our 40s, so we might not have been able to get here again. It’s testament to a lot of hard work over three or four years.

“First half, I felt we looked nervous and maybe last year played on our minds a bit.

“Yes, we took the lead, but I’m not sure it was fully deserved.

“But, second half, we really came into our own, we played a lot better football and the game got stretched, which suited us. It was a big squad effort.

“We’ve won the league three years in a row, we won the League Cup last year, and I believe we’re the first Kent County League team to win this competition, so that can’t be bad. Maybe it’s time to retire!”

There was an early scare for Aylesford when Ben Short’s header came back off the bar and