Sittingbourne FA Trophy match-winner Anthony Church tells how he put retirement on hold to fire Brickies through to quarter-finals with victory at Southend
Anthony Church put retirement on hold to fire Sittingbourne through to the FA Trophy quarter-finals.
Midfielder Church scored in the sixth minute of added time as the Brickies won 1-0 at National League Southend on Saturday.
The 37-year-old considered his career to be over after leaving Bishop’s Stortford recently.
But he decided to play on after the Brickies came calling and marked his debut by scoring the winner as Ryan Maxwell’s Isthmian South East side continued their record-breaking Trophy exploits.
“I was probably retired a couple of weeks ago,” said Church,” who came on at Roots Hall with four minutes of normal time remaining.
“I was at Bishop’s Stortford for a period, I was just trying to juggle a lot of work commitments with football and training, so I wasn’t really looking to play.
“But the group is one you can obviously get pulled into and I think what the management team have done is incredible.
“Any team that goes 27 games unbeaten and goes this far in the Trophy shows it’s a special team.
“I’ve been involved in football a long time, 20-plus years, but this is a special group.
“They’ve just made history and I’ve been a tiny part of that, so I’m just glad I joined.
“I’ve known Maxy and I’ve known Reece Prestedge, the assistant manager, for 20 years.
“They asked if I could help out where I can, I did, and I’m fortunate to have been involved in this win.
“I was only coming on for 10 minutes to shore things up with a bit of experience, and I’ve ended up scoring the winner.”
Church, who’s also played for Boston and Chelmsford, could see the work that had gone into preparing for the Southend tie.
The Shrimpers may have been three leagues higher than Sittingbourne but Maxwell’s team were never just going to Roots