Southern Counties East League round-up: Annual groundhop brings bumper crowds to Lordswood, Rochester United, Faversham Town and Whitstable Town

There were bumper crowds across the Southern Counties East League as the annual groundhop weekend took place.

The action started on Friday night as Lordswood hosted Corinthian in the Premier Division.

A crowd of 324 – Lordswood’s biggest league gate for 18 years – saw the visitors take a first-half lead through Jamie Billings.

But leading scorer James Jeffrey’s twice-taken penalty with 10 minutes left was enough to earn Matt Barman’s men a point.

The early Saturday morning fixture saw Rochester host Faversham Strike Force in Division 1 with a club-record crowd of 279 at Rede Court Road.

They had to be patient for the only goal of the game, though, with Harrison Hume scoring in the final minute to hand Rochester maximum points.

It was back to Premier Division action in the afternoon with leaders Faversham easing their way to a 5-2 success against Hollands & Blair.

Another bumper crowd was at Salters Lane with 563 seeing the hosts go into the break 2-0 ahead thanks to Kieron Campbell and Stefan Payne.

Payne’s penalty early in the second half extended the advantage and Ashley Miller and Ollie Gray completed the hosts’ tally with Dean Grant netting a late brace in reply for Blair.

The day’s final game was at The Belmont where Whitstable hosted Bearsted in a 6.30pm kick-off.

There was an emotional minute’s applause before kick-off in memory of Matt Milne, who passed away last weekend.

A crowd of 682 saw Josh Oliver’s third-minute goal put Whitstable ahead and Harvey Smith’s cracking goal made it 2-0 early in the second half.

Joel Wakefield pulled one back with 20 minutes left but Whitstable held on to take all three points.

The groundhop is completed on Sunday with Lydd hosting Snodland at 11am and Deal at home to Kennington