Somerset Trojans 0 Dandy Town 3

Angelo Simmons converted a penalty and had one assist as Dandy Town brushed aside Somerset Trojans at Goose Gosling Field on Saturday night to emphatically retain the Charity Cup.

The Town midfielder whipped in a free kick that led to Brandon Minors breaking the deadlock early in the second half. Jahnazae Swan chipped home from an angle to double the visiting side’s lead before Simmons served the last rites from the penalty spot to kill the game off.

“At Dandy Town we have a philosophy of ‘no guts, no glory’ and you get out what you put in and basically I thought we played together today,” Minors, the Town captain, said.

“We fought hard for each other and as you can see from the result we came out victorious.”

Reflecting upon his team’s defeat, Trevin Ming, the Somerset captain, said: “We are disappointed because we put a lot of work in preseason and this was a showcase to show the public what we have been working on.

“This was one of the cups we haven’t had in a long time, so we wanted to try and win this one.”

Town came out strong from the kick off, taking early control of midfield with Simmons pulling all of the strings and pinned Somerset in their half.

Simmons caused alarm when he broke free down the middle, drew a defender and the goalkeeper, only for his pass to an unmarked team-mate in the box to be intercepted.

Swan also found himself in open space down the right flank but his cross in the middle was easily dealt with by a back-pedalling Trojan defence.

Town’s best chance of the first half fell to Kwonde Lathan, the defender, whose glancing header from Minors’s searching cross forced Shaquille Bean, the Somerset goalkeeper, to make a one-handed save.

After absorbing waves of pressure, Somerset began to venture forward into Town terrain more frequently but lacked cutting edge in the final third. The closest the home team came to scoring was just before the half when Damon Swan’s inswinging corner kick was cleared on the goal line.

Town were clearly the better team in the first half but had nothing to show for their hard work as the teams went into the dressing rooms deadlocked.

Whatever encouragement Jomar Wilkinson, the Town coach, gave his players during the break certainly had the desired effect when play resumed.

Minors stabbed Simmons’s free kick across the goalline before Somerset fell in further arrears as Swan once again underlined his enormous potential with a brilliantly taken opportunistic goal after Bean fumbled in the box.

After a Town raid fizzled out, Bean dribbled the ball to the edge of the box but lost possession before he picked it up. Swan pounced on the loose ball and chipped into the empty net.

Somerset mounted a late fightback which might have gathered momentum had referee Antione Augustus upheld the home team’s confident appeal for a penalty after Jaz Ratteray-Smith, the winger, went sprawling in the box.

Somerset’s Jensen Rogers then hesitated too long to pull the trigger and had the ball gathered at his feet by Mikkail Crockwell, the Town goalkeeper.

Town kept probing and were eventually rewarded when Simmons quickly dusted himself off after being floored in the box and drilled his spot-kick past Bean to put the match further beyond Somerset’s reach.

With Somerset now clearly a beaten bunch, Town went close on two occasions to stretching their lead near the end, Minors’s cross rolling untouched across the goalmouth and Bean denying late sub Dominique Lambert from point-blank range right on the final whistle.

“This was definitely a psychological boost for us,” Wilkinson, the Town coach, said. “Last season we got off to a bad start so we put a lot of emphasis on getting off to a good start.”