HEART BREAKER

Whitehawk’s dream ends in extra time

DAGENHAM & REDBRIDGE survived an up-and- down game on an up-and- down pitch to deny non-League Whitehawk a dream FA Cup third-round tie against Everton. Defender Ayo Obileye headed in a corner on 100 minutes after Whitehawk’s Juan Cruz Gotta had converted in stoppage time to haul the home supporters’ hopes into extra time.

Whitehawk’s long run towards the third round stopped painfully short of a meeting at Goodison Park, but it still brought the greatest night in the club’s history. The Enclosed Ground, home of a sixth-tier club, is a proper non-League venue, a place where dreams are made or washed away down the huge mud bank which runs down the length of one side of the pitch, atop which was a temporary car park.

A steward waited at the bottom, instructing drivers to ‘give it some welly’ to make it to the top. There is a steep incline from one corner of the ground down to a stand known as The Din.

Whitehawk shot downhill in the first half and took the lead on 32 minutes. Striker Danny Mills headed in when Jake Robinson found him with a cross from the right.

This was the first time Whitehawk had been on national television, but for all the build-up and first-half pressure, the visitors levelled out of nowhere just before the break.

Centre back Gotta had been on the pitch for less than a minute — replacing the injured Dean Leacock — when Kyle Vassell turned him and fired into the roof of the net. It left an uphill battle for the home side, quite literally.

Dagenham defender Josh Passley latched on to Jamie Cureton’s cross to put them in front and that looked to be it until Gotta, making amends for his defensive error, smashed in from a corner at the death.

Extra time began and Obileye nodded in from close range. Dagenham’s James Dunne was sent off but there was not time for Whitehawk to make their man advantage count.