CANVEY Island clinched promotion to the Isthmian Premier League with a dramatic play-off final win against Brentwood Town at Park Lane.
The match – which was played in front of 2, 532 fans – finished 1-1 after both 90 minutes and extra time with the Gulls’ Matthew Price cancelling out an early effort from Brentwood’s Tom Richardson.
But it was Canvey who held their nerve to win 4-1 on penalties with Price scoring the winner from the spot with a Panenka style effort.
O’Shane Stewart, Evans Kouassi and Conor Hubble were also on target from the penalty spot for Brad Wellmen’s side.
And the Gulls boss was full of praise for his players
"It’s an unbelievable performance," said Wellmen.
"We set our goals out at the start of the season to get promoted and we’ve achieved that.
"I thought we were poor at times tonight though to be honest.
"We started the game poorly and gave away a poor goal but we came back into it and started playing well.
"We got back into the game but in the second half we didn’t go going and they were relentless with their pressure.
"They had a lot of set pieces and overpowered us in certain areas but from a defensive stand point we were good."
That took the tie to penalties and Price's eye-catching winner from the spot.
But the style of the penalty did not completely surprise Wellmen.
"All year we’ve spoken at training and gone back and forth about if you’ve got a penalty to win the game the goalkeeper is diving so 100 per cent Panenka it," said Wellmen.
"He told me he was doing it but it gets to the shoot-out tonight and he’s got to score to get us promotion.
"I’m telling him to leave it but he’s done it.
"That’s what he’s about and he's unorthodox
"But we’ve won it and I think over the course of the season we deserve to go up."
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