RONALD GIFTS BOSS COYLE HIS SEND-OFF TO SAVOUR

TALK about finishing in style! Not just Ronald Sithole, whose extra-time winner was worthy of settling any Wembley final but, more fittingly, his Whitstable Town boss Jamie Coyle, who signed off his 25-year playing career with the biggest win of his life on the grandest of stages.

- Jon Couch

Player-manager Coyle hung his Non-League boots up for the final time after steering the Oystermen to a 2-1 comeback victory over AFC Whyteleafe to win the FA Vase for the first time in the club's history.

At 41, the centre-back is already fabled in Kent legend having collected numerous honours for a plethora of clubs in the county over a glittering career spanning a quarter of a century.

But nothing will quite top walking up the famous steps to the middle tier of the Home of Football last Sunday to lift the famous trophy and light the touch paper for the next chapter of his career, in the manager's dugout.

Having already missed out on promotion from the Southern Counties East League play-offs and losing in the final of the Kent Senior Cup to Larkfield & New Hythe, Coyle must have feared the worst when Dan Bennett fired Whyteleafe into a deserved lead on 17 minutes.

But Whitstable improved as the game went on and were well worthy of Harvey Smith's equaliser six minutes into the start of the second half.

Both sides struck the woodwork in an entertaining encounter in the Wembley sunshine between two evenly-matched sides before Sithole struck in the ninth minute of extra-time to hand his boss the fairytale ending.

Strong, raucous followings welcomed the players out onto the pitch in this all south-east affair with the 6,500 AFC Whyteleafe contingent holding aloft green and white placards to an almost tribal, chequered effect.