Billingham Town's celebrations lasted well into the night after they beat Bishop Auckland in the final of the Durham Challenge Cup on Easter Monday.

Town lifted their first major trophy in style with a 2-0 victory thanks to goals from Andy Swalwell and David Turner, against their out of sorts UniBond league opponents.

"It was superb to win our first major trophy," said secretary Glenn Youngman.

"We played Bishops in the final two years ago, and lost 1-0.

"Maybe some of the players froze on that occasion, and we didn't do ourselves justice.

"Since then, we've improved the squad, and the players are more experienced. They had an idea of what to expect.

"I was delighted for our chairman, Tommy Donnelly. He was there at the beginning of the club way back in the 1970s, and it's a reward for all his hard work."

For Town, it was their second UniBond scalp of the season in the competition, as they beat Spennymoor on penalties at the Brewery Field, while they also defeated much-fancied Shildon and Brandon along the way.

Manager Alan Robinson said: "I always felt that we had a chance, considering the number of games Bishops have had recently, plus the number of injuries they had going into the game.

"We played a game last Tuesday night, but Bishops had games on the Wednesday and the Saturday after that, which probably didn't help them. We were free on Saturday.

"After watching them a few times, I felt that if we could weather their early storm, then we could win.

"I thought that the first half was fairly even, and we took control of the second half. Maybe we played Bishops at the right time."

Bishops' supporters sportingly said that the better team won on the day, and manager Brian Honour said: "I thought we were good for 20 minutes, but we had too many players missing.

"We only really looked a threat when we pushed Shaun Hope up front, but we didn't create enough chances.

"We knew that we would have players unavailable because they'd played for other clubs in the competition, but we were carrying too many injuries.

"For example, we lost Brian Rowe because of injury during the game at Farsley on Saturday, and he's been superb for us this season.

"We were probably missing five or six players who would have been in the team, and you can't really get away with that in a cup final. Some of the other players aren't used to the big occasion yet.

"But now, we must concentrate on the league. We shouldn't be scrambling for a play off place because I think we're too good a team when everybody is available, but 13th place will do for now.