Fleet sail through

Gravesend & Northfleet continued their impressive FA Youth Cup run with a thrilling 2-1 win at Dunstable Town in the First Round Proper on Thursday night.

The visitors were quickly into their stride and had the better of the opening exchanges, with John Akindi coming close to breaking the deadlock after just 15 minutes.

With neither side prepared to give an inch, the game became an end-to-end battle with both teams having chances to score, but it was the visitors who struck first through Kwesi Appiah.

The forward broke clear of the defence and rounded Dunstable's goalkeeper Nicholas Gardener before slotting the ball home with a cool finish ten minutes before the break.

That goal stung Dunstable into action and they laid siege to the visitors' goal, but Gravesend hung on until the interval and were unlucky not to double their lead on 51 minutes when Akindi was denied by a superb save from the impressive Gardener in the Dunstable goal.

The home side were soon level through Ashton Campbell after they awarded a penalty for handball. The striker stepped up confidently to fire the ball home to make it 1-1 on the hour.

The game continued to flow from end-to-end with Gardener pulling off another tremendous save just a minute later. The keeper impressed throughout the game, but could do nothing about Gravesend's winner and will consider himself unfortunate to have played so well and end up on the losing side.

The winning goal came after 77 minutes when Gravesend's combative midfielder Tommy Whitnell burst clear of the defence and hit an unstoppable shot past Gardener to seal Gravesend's place in the next round.