Unchanged for more than four decades, the Stonebridge Road skyline will be minus one veteran observer for our next home game.

It has dominated the skyline in the space between ‘MyFC Corner’ and the Plough End since our Southern League-winning season of 1958 and stood watch over more than 1,200 home games but now the Bevans chimney, part of LaFarge Cement Works, is no more.

This picture, captured by former mayor and Northfleet resident Ray Parker, shows the 106m chimney crashing to the ground in a demolition operation last Sunday.

It is the first, oldest and smallest of the three chimneys to go – the others, dating from the 1970s, will see out the football season before demolition in May or June, meaning a much-changed horizon for those standing along the Stonebridge Road terrace come 2010-11.