But three years on from that final loss, all three savoured the glory as Ian Chandler’s extra-time goal ensured Bowes’ penalty miss did not prove decisive.In a dull first 90 minutes neither side created many opportunities, with Whitley Bay’s Michael Fenwick and Chandler going close when well placed. In the 52nd minute Middleton was tugged down in the box, but a defiant penalty save by Jason Haygreen from the unfortunate Bowes ensured the game went into extra time.The semi-professional players looked weary in the extra 30 minutes and both teams struggled to create clear-cut chances. As tempers rose and the referee, Andy Kaye, started to brandish yellow cards regularly, Chandler, a 34-year-old accountant, snatched the decisive goal.Halfway through the first period of extra time, the striker connected with a close-range header to thump the ball home past a stranded Haygreen in the Tiptree goal for his seventh goal in the Vase this season.The Essex village side poured forward in search of an equaliser, but a resolute and well-marshalled Whitley Bay back four refused to surrender their lead, clinging on for a deserved win.. Stoke, to judge by yesterday’s massive following, can muster support worthy of the Premiership, never mind the First Division But one promotion will do nicely for the moment. As more than three-quarters of the 42,523-strong crowd celebrated with a raucous chorus of “We’re going up”, Stoke clinched the Second Division play-off final by dominating the first half with two goals and then showing disciplined defence in the second to blunt Brentford’s attempts to pull the match round. Not even occupation of the “lucky” north dressing room could help them. All previous 11 big occasions at the Millennium Stadium in Cardiff had been won by occupants of the north and, to show their contempt for superstition in the face of superior football, two Stoke players, Deon Burton and Wayne Thomas, paraded round the perimeter at the end carrying a red banner, bearing the message “Dressing room jinx my a***”.

Brentford even lost the pre-match toss for the right to wear the red-and-white striped shirts which are the colours of both clubs. Just not their day.This occasion of promotion joy – an Icelandic success which might well have had them cavorting in the streets of Reykjavik last night – may well save the job of their manager, Gudjon Thordarson. The reverse is that it may mean the end of Steve Coppell’s time in charge of a Brentford team who are now in danger of breaking up, as out-of-contract players drift away.The Stoke goals came from set pieces by Icelandic players, appropriately since the club is owned and funded by businessmen from that country. The first, after 16 minutes, resulted from a corner-kick on the right, taken left-footed by Arnar Gunnlaugsson, so recently of Leicester City.

The ball was flicked on at the near post by the head of Chris Iwelumo and forced home by Deon Burton, Stoke’s on-loan man from Derby.If there was a touch of Brentford involvement in that first goal – Burton aimed inside the near post and the ball eventually crossed the line by the far upright after striking two defenders – the second goal in injury time was indisputably delivered by Brentford. A free-kick on the left was swung in by Bjarni Gudjonsson, the midfielder who just happens to be the Stoke manager’s son. The ball had already taken one slight deflection before it went in comprehensively off Ben Burgess. Coppell called them “two terrible goals”.Having rarely looked like getting the better of the excellent Belarusian, Sergei Shtaniuk, at the heart of the defence, and having been outplayed in midfield, where Gunnlaugsson was outstanding, Brentford summoned more passion after the interval, although it needed two excellent interventions by Brentford’s left-back, Ijah Anderson, to prevent Stoke bagging a third within five minutes of the resumption.After that, it was Stoke on the back foot and Brentford rampant, with the captain, Paul Evans, driving his team forward from midfield.