WITHIN the space of three glorious days for the club, Whitecroft and Barton Sports have secured a league and cup double — winning the Isle of Wight County Press Challenge Cup last night (Thursday) after the Harwoods Island League Division 1 on Monday.
W&B beat Cowes Sports Reserves 5-3 in front of a 241-strong crowd at Newport's St George's Park.
The fatigue and injuries predicted by their boss, Steve Rayner, from playing such a long season — battling for honours on five fronts — took its toll in some measure.
Defender Joe Adams was in the wars, suffering a head injury that required a lengthy stoppage in the first half, before he went off with a leg injury in the second, together with injuries to Matt Evans and Alex Wright.
A fourth player went off to injury and Harry Ovnik was given a straight red card by the referee for a rash, lunging challenge, which saw W&B playing the latter stages with nine men potentially until Adams amazingly came back on when it was all hands to the pump.
Ovnik will now miss a minimum three matches at a vital time of the season in cup competitions for the five-in-a-row league champions.
W&B were on fire from the first whistle — Freddy Knowles getting ahead of Cowes keeper Ben Gearing and nodding just over from a decent Matt Evans cross in the opening minute.
Then Knowles turned provider as Evans turned well close in and sweetly struck it home after five minutes to give the cup favourites the lead.
Three minutes later, it was Evans again in the right place to bundle it in on the line for the second — a goal that stemmed from a poorly defended corner.
There must have been some fears among the Cowes fans it would be a repeat of the 9-1 home hammering at the hands of W&B back in November.
But amazingly — and controversially — referee Abu Gates gave Cowes a penalty two minutes later for a holding ingringement in the penalty area from a long, searching cross into the W&B box.
Scott McFarland finished it coolly to half the deficit.
But the game became scrappy, with Cowes parking the bus, hoping to score on the break, as W&B failed to create any clear-cut chances.
However, W&B, out of nowhere, went 3-1 up when Sam Yelland popped up on 37 minutes to crash the ball home from ten yards, following a good low cross from Knowles on the right.
Cowes striker Arthur Balchin had a half-chance to pull it back again a minute later, but shot wide.
More poor Cowes defending from a free kick just outside the penalty area was their undoing again, as Aiden Sainsbury side-footed calmly through the wall and past the helpless keeper into the far corner, which gave W&B an unassilable 4-1 half-time lead.
Cowes tried to make a better fist of it in the opening exchanges of the second half, restricting W&B to a long shot from Jack East, comfortably saved by Gearing on the hour mark.
W&B ended the final as a contest on 69 minutes when an excellent cross whipped in from the left by Sainsbury was headed into the roof of the Cowes net by Josh Appell on 69 minutes for his 28th goal of the season.
But when W&B went down to ten men through injuries, toothless Cowes looked resurgent, with Balchin shooting just wide when well placed, then scoring on 85 minutes, when a deflected shot from just inside the box looped over stopper Gareth True into the net for 5-2.
The Cowes contingent in the crowd found their voice when Balchin, on the spot again, blasted in from six yards for 5-3 after W&B failed to clear a low cross.
Just before the fourth official held up the board to signify four minutes of injury time, Ovnik got his marching orders as the crowd sensed a possible granstand finish from Cowes.
With Shaw coming back on to help shore up W&B's fragile-looking defence, which had looked so solid for the majority of the game, they saw it though to the final whistleafter eight minutes were eventually added.
Isle of Wight County Press sports editor, Jon Moreno, presented the newspaper's Challenge Cup to Appell, to wild celebrations at the end.
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