Players, staff and the all-important trophy made their way through the streets this morning, to cheers from the overjoyed crowd. Bartholomew Hall reports.
00:00These are the non-league heroes that have brought a wave of glory to the Whitstable
00:09coast and to the fans that have lined the streets to see their open-top bus
00:14parade this is what it means to them. We're very excited and we're very proud. We were
00:19hoping there were going to be a parade didn't know whether they were going to
00:21be on fishing boats in the harbour or on an open-top bus but we'll take anything
00:25so it's great, great to celebrate. I mean it shows that anything could happen when you're like football.
00:31Winning the FA Vars a week earlier in front of 7,000 fans at Wembley Stadium was
00:36the biggest day in the 140 year history of this club which became the first in
00:42Kent to lift the trophy in 25 years.
00:47It might be coming slowly but you can hear the cheers here, the celebrations up and down the high street.
00:52There are hundreds of thousands of people moving along with the bus. Players, managers, backroom staff
00:58all celebrating this massive achievement, the win at Wembley.
01:03Making its way from the iconic harbour through the high street and ending up at the club's ground
01:08the celebrations then moved from the bus to the pitch where the trophy run all started.
01:13For the players now cornered with requests for selfies and signatures, this is the stuff of boyhood fantasy.
01:20I think it's really good to be fair, I mean I was like that as well, getting my shirt signed, getting everything signed, so yeah it's amazing, it's really amazing.
01:27It's so surreal, I mean even since Sunday it still hasn't really sunk in what we've done.
01:33I was just interested talking with a fan, you know, it's not like we've won the league or we've won a cup in the league, this is the pinnacle of what it means to be non-league.
01:40From Wembley to Whitstable, here is the silverware that's brought all of these celebrations to Whitstable today and with it £30,000 to this non-league club, which I'm told will go very far.
01:51We'll invest that money wisely into the club as we always do, every penny we make here goes back into the club, we're totally run by volunteers so that's one of the joys of doing the club that we continue to build and improve and improve the facilities.
02:05You want to retain the people that were there at Wembley, the people that are there today and that will help build the football club for the future so that's the biggest aim for us and you just want to get more people through the gates week in week out next year and help us win the league.
02:18It's often said non-league football is the heartbeat of communities and well from these scenes today it's clear Whitstable's oystermen have cast a victory that's anchored this town as one.
