Great Wakering Rovers will go into Saturday's home game with Corinthian Casuals knowing that victory will gain them first time promotion from the Ryman League Third Division.

Injury-hit Rovers, who seemed odds-on favourites for the title a few weeks ago, haven't won in four League games, but received a massive boost last night when Aveley, one of their rivals for one of the three promotion spots, crashed 1-0 at home to Epsom and Ewell.

It all means that Wakering need three points from their final five games to ensure going up. Last night the village side gave themselves a boost when they reached the semi-finals of the East Anglian Cup.

At a very wet Burroughs Park they beat Jewson League Halstead Town 4-0 with Micky Munro's header (11 minutes) from an Adam French cross and a Tommy Dalgarno header (40 minutes) from Danny Scopes through ball giving them a 2-0 interval lead.

French's polished volley, which dipped just under the bar, made it 3-0 after 57 minutes and substitute Ryan Wilkinson grabbed the fourth five minutes later, two minutes after coming on.

Mark Page and Paul Jacques, promoted from the second team, acquitted themselves well with the latter outstanding in a tie which saw Jimmy Ablitt collect man of the match honours. Wakering go to Harlow in the semi-finals a week tonight.

Converted for the new archive on 19 November 2001. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.