Kent County League

Premier Division

Wednesday 13th August 2025

Kick Off 18.45 Actual 18.42

Canterbury City 2 Minster 3, attendance 128

17’ 1-0

41’ 2-0

69’ 2-1

87’ 2-2

90’ 2-3

@ Thanington Recreation Ground

Thanington Road

Thanington

CT1 3XE

No Admission

£2 Programme, 16 pages.

Over the years Canterbury City have been good to me, as far as playing on different grounds go. I first saw them host Witney Town in a Southern League Southern Division match back in March 1992, which was played at the now gone Kingsmead Stadium. By September 2007 they’d moved to Bridge Road in Patrixbourne, where I saw them beat Borden Village 5-0 in a Kent County League Division 2 East match. Next up, in July 2008, was a 2-1 win in a friendly against Erith & Belvedere Reserves, played on the 3G pitch at Whitstable Community College. Ground number four, in August 2009, was Hersden Recreation Ground, where they drew 1-1 with Fleet Leisure in a Kent County League Premier Division match. So, onto tonight. They’re now based at Thanington Recreation Ground, to the west of Canterbury. It’s just an open pitch, with a side to side slope, which was roped off, with a couple of portable dugouts on the far side. The changing rooms are part of the Thanington Resource Centre building, whilst a tea bar was set up at the corner of the pitch, where a match day programme was also available.

It seemed a bit late to schedule an 18.45 kick off this far east, especially as it rained for most of the first half, not helping the light, although the game did get underway three minutes early in the end. Canterbury broke the deadlock after seventeen minutes, when a break down the right was finished with a low angled shot into the far corner. Just after the half hour Minster saw a shot hit the crossbar, before bouncing down on the line, then hacked clear, shortly followed by a header that hit the crossbar, before Canterbury doubled their lead five minutes before halftime, with a free kick from the edge of the D that went straight into the bottom corner. With twenty one minutes left Minster pulled a goal back, converting a cross from the right at the far post and it looked inevitable from there that they’d get something out of the game. The equaliser came with three minutes left, when a long ball forward was controlled on the edge of the box before beating the ‘keeper with a low shot into the near corner of the net, despite him getting a hand to it. The winner for the visitors arrived right on ninety minutes, when a ball down the right hand side of the box was finished low into the corner. There was still time for Canterbury to have a man sent off in stoppage time, picking up a second yellow card for a foul as Minster were attacking down the left.

A totally trouble free journey both down and back from East Kent and this sees the top division of the Kent County League re-completed.