The result says Sittingbourne lost but they could so easily have won if they had taken their chances and if the referee had spotted the hand balls in the area that the supporters did!

The match showed that the new look Sittingbourne team, urged on by some good support, is gradually coming together and there are plenty of grounds to believe that they can be a force this season.

Gary Abbott tried 16 players in this game, the starting line up included 6 new faces compared to last season.  Missing were Pat Gradley, and the injured Hicham Akhazzan and Ian Varley.

Sittingbourne started brightly but the best chance of the first quarter fell on 12 minutes to Aveley who  had a header go narrowly wide. Two minutes later Richard Brady had a cross dropped by the Aveley keeper but no one was on hand to take advantage:- then Brady lobbed a shot narrowly wide. He was looking lively and he had another cross that looked to have been handled in the area but the referee disagreed.

Sittingbourne were having the better of the game, Brady and Dave Milton combining for a Brady shot that crashed against the bar. Despite all of the Sittingbourne pressure Aveley took the lead when in the 34^th minute Romanian Petrick Elbi found himself in space and he did well to curl the ball round Brickies keeper Rob French. Aveley took encouragement from this goal and Elbi had another effort go just wide.

Billy Manners was suffering from a slight hip injury and was replaced by Joe Horlock at the start of the second half. This meant a reshuffling of the defence and with Ian Varley also missing  the Brickies had only one recognised defender in Ryan Andrews. However this apparent shortage of defenders didn't show in the early part of the new half as despite an early scare when a glancing header went narrowly wide the Brickies gained the momentum. On 51 minutes an attempted  back pass was intercepted by Tom Bradbrook who fired a neat shot into the Aveley net for a deserved equaliser. Bradbrook makes a habit of scoring against Aveley as he bagged two goals for Dartford against them last season.

Sittingbourne were now the dominant team and Dave Milton had a couple of efforts go wide, then  a Brady free kick was fumbled by the keeper but a defender was on the line to head clear. Aveley then had a new lease of life and with just 3 minutes to play one of their players was brought down in the area and Leon Disuick put the penalty away to give the Essex side the lead. With time ticking away interplay between Milton and Brady set up a chance for Elie Kayembe but his ferocious shot bounced off the bar and Aveley could celebrate a narrow victory.