Cricket and football great Ufton dies

Kent cricketer and Charlton and England footballer Derek Ufton died aged 92. Ufton made 149 first-class appearances for Kent and 277 appearances for Charlton during an 11-year period from the 1949/50 season. As a centre-half he also won one England cap, against a Rest of Europe side at Wembley in 1953.

Wicketkeeper Ufton was understudy to Godfrey Evans and scored 3,915 runs at an average of 20.01 and claimed 313 victims (269 caught, 44 stumped). He was also Kent president in 2001.

An independent panel ruled Dover were deemed guilty of four breaches of Rule 8.39 for failing to play matches between February 16 and February 27. They were fined £40,000 and would start the 2021/22 season on minus 12 points. The results of the 15 National League games they had played were expunged.

In League 1, Gillingham lost just once in eight matches, picking up five wins, but boss Steve Evans cooled the play-off talk.

Speaking after one of the highlights of the month - a 3-0 win at third-place Lincoln - Evans said: “We won’t be getting carried away, we won’t be talking about anything. The play-offs are still a big stretch for us. That would be unbelievable, the lowest budget in League 1 gets in the play-offs.”

There were World Cup qualifier call-ups for several non-league players.

Dartford pair Jernade Meade and Craig Braham-barrett were called-up for Montserrat as the island nation prepared to face Antigua and Barbuda and El Salvador. Sevenoaks’ Joey Taylor was also selected, as was Welling’s Kaleem Simon along with Erith Town goalkeeper Nic Taylor.

Ricky Modeste, who played for Dartford in the 2020/21 campaign, was included in the Grenada squad to play El Salvador and the US Virgin Islands.

Derek Ufton, right, with then-club captain Matthew Fleming, centre, and Lord Kingsdown, who succeeded him as Kent president in 2002