Billericay Town 3 Canvey Island 1

BBC Essex Senior Cup Round Four, Tuesday 11th January

Tuesday saw me over at New Lodge for a South Essex derby between Billericay Town & Canvey Island, and the hosts won through to the Last Eight thanks to an own goal and strikes from Joshua Smile & Shaquile Coulthirst.

Both these sides had entered the competition at the Third Round stage, The Blues had seen off Essex Senior League side White Ensign 1-0 at New Lodge whilst Canvey had dispatched Thurlow Nunn South Holland 5-0 at Dulwich Road on the North Essex coast, and a win for either of these sides in this one would see them into the Quarter Finals.

Town had played their youngsters side against Ensign, however, they went fairly strong for this contest and only made five changes from the side that had held Vanarama South leaders Maidstone United at the weekend, they were taking Canvey very seriously indeed, and they had every reason too, the Gulls have had a decent season so far and were confident of an upset here, despite their two step gap in terms of the football pyramid.

Billericay had the first chance when Norman Wabo found himself clear on goal after breaking the offside trap, but after lifting the ball over the stranded Bobby Mason, saw his effort go over the bar, and then on seventeen minutes Canvey struck to take a shock lead when Matthew Price chased down a cross that had been played in from the right, and he fired in a pinpoint centre to Callum Fitzer who nodded home from close range.

The hosts though gradually got their act together and started to put pressure on the visiting back line, and eight minutes before the break levelled when a ball nodded back across goal saw Canvey defender Evangelos-Nikalaos Empochonstif, under pressure from Wabo, knock the ball into his own net from close range and hand the hosts a leveller.

The hosts then so nearly took the lead but saw Mason somehow keep out a close range effort, but two minutes into stoppage time at the end of the half he could do nothing to stop a superb long range effort from Smile who made his team mates and home support 'smile' as his effort hit the back of the net with Mason rooted to the spot, and it meant Town went into the break with the lead.

Town's best chance after the break saw Wabo head over when in a decent position but the final twenty-twenty five minutes certainly belonged to the visitors who took the game to their higher league opponents, and backed by a superb away support all evening could and should have at least forced penalties.

Rhys Lovett in the home goal produced a brilliant one handed stop to deny Canvey from range, and then Price should have had another assist as his lovey dinked ball to the far post fell perfectly for Elliot Ronto, but he could only head wide with the goal gaping, it was a golden chance.

Canvey threw on Conor Hubble, Evans Kouassi & Liam Oliver late on to try and salvage something, but it was Billericay who were to grab the next goal and seal the tie with four minutes left when Coulthirst was played in to slot beyond Mason, although Canvey felt there had been a handball in the build up so were not happy with that.

Canvey still had a few minutes to try and make it interesting, and Oliver blazed over from close range, rather summing up their luck in front of goal in this one, on another day they could easily have got something from this game, but it was a solid performance from the hosts, especially first half, which ended up getting them into the Quarters.

The Gulls will take plenty from this though, and now have promotion to try and grab in the coming months ahead, whilst for the Blues it's a Last Eight spot and also survival in the Vanarama South to concentrate on, if they do not achieve this then there is a good possibility of these two meeting in the league next season.

Full time Billericay Town 3 Canvey Island 1