IF local soccer derbies are all about fans of the winning side earning bragging rights, Canvey Island followers should be singing from the rooftops today.

For, in yesterday’s Bank Holiday bonanza at Park Lane, John Batch’s Gulls totally destroyed their more established visitors with a display that had the home fans purring.

The star of the show was un-doubtedly home midfielder David Lee, the former Southend United player, who orchestrated the downfall of the shell-shocked opposition.

Lee, who suffered a horrific double leg fracture at Park Lane while playing for Aldershot three years ago, looks set to be a vital cog in the Island machine on their return to this level.

“To describe David Lee as class today would be wrong — he was better than that,” purred Batch.

“He could be playing at a higher level, but he’s here because he wants to be and enjoys it — and I’m glad to say we’ve got him on contract.

“People should remember that, when he tried earlier comebacks it was too soon. Manchester United boss Sir Alex Ferguson said that it takes two years or more to recover from the type of injury he had.”

For the second successive game, Lee fired home a superb free-kick for the homesters, this time putting them ahead after 14 minutes.

After 28 minutes it was 2-0 with central defender Chris Moore, who played more than 300 games for Billericay earlier in his career, stepping up to score with a totally out of character overhead kick after Kevin Dobinson had crashed Lee’s corner against the bar.

Moore, a summer arrival like Lee, said with a grin: “That’s got to be one of the best goals I’ve ever scored. I’m used to coming up and thumping in headers from set pieces, but that was special.

“I loved my time at Billericay. It’s a great club with superb fans and it’s just the same here at Canvey.”

Gulls eased up a little after the break for a time and manager Batch revealed: “I had to remind them that we should show more belief in ourselves and go looking for more goals.”

They did and were rewarded when Leon Gordon finished a fine move down the left by scoring the third and substitute Ian Luck took advantage of an injury time Billericay defensive mix-up to nab the fourth.

Billericay joint boss Grant Gordon refused to hide behind the fact that the visitors were without half-a-dozen potential first teamers.

He said: “We put out a squad that was capable of making a game of it, but we were poor today.

“The performance was totally unacceptable. At times we played brainless football and we got exactly what we deserved — as did Canvey.

“All credit to them. I feel sorry for our fans who gave up their Bank Holiday afternoon to support us.

“They’ve been a bit critical of us in our last two home games, even though we won them both, and that upset us.

“But they really got behind us today and we let them down on the pitch.”