It’s a case of a local boy done really good as Ben Seymour-Shove fires St Ives Town to a ‘special’ success

St Ives Town match-winner Ben Seymour-Shove insists he’ll never forget the day he fired his hometown club to promotion.

The wideman produced a stunning strike to clinch Southern League Division One (Central) play-off final glory for Saints on Bank Holiday.

Seymour-Shove collected a lay-off from frontman Danny Watson, steadied himself and rifled an unstoppable shot past Diamonds keeper Matt Finlay from fully 20 yards in the seventh minute of extra-time to complete a stellar comeback from Ricky Marheineke’s side.

Seymour-Shove said: “It was a special day for the club and fantastic to score the goal that won promotion. It’s a brilliant memory to have.

“To see so many people behind us, and to be able to get the result we all wanted to finish the season off, was great.

“Danny brought the ball down into my path and I shifted it to give myself the chance to shoot.

“I thought ‘why not have a dig?’ and fortunately it flew into the top corner.

“I’d had a couple of opportunities earlier in the game that I didn’t quite connect with properly, but it was brilliant to see this one hit the net.

“This is a reward for all the hard work we’ve done and all the hours we’ve spent on the training ground.”

And Seymour-Shove is already relishing the prospect of playing Southern League Premier Division football next season where Saints will be rubbing shoulders with fellow Huntingdonshire side St Neots Town.

He added: “We’ll do plenty of celebrating and enjoy the moment, but then we have another huge challenge to look forward to.

“This is a club going places and we want to keep it that way. It’s going to be really tough next season, but we’ll be ready for it.

“And hopefully the fan base can continue to grow as well. We showed everyone what we can do in the play-off final and hopefully lots of those people will come back next season.”