The Gun beat New River Plate in the sweltering heat at Hackney Marshes to capture the Camden Sunday League’s Challenge Cup

THE most scorching Camden Sunday League cup final in history has resulted in The Gun establishing themselves as the hottest property in grassroots football.

With the mercury passing 30 degrees at Hackney Marshes at the weekend, The Gun beat the heat, and a resilient New River Plate side, to seal an immortalising quadruple.

And what makes their spectacular season even more remarkable is that it was almost cut short, with the club seriously considering folding just five months ago.

Club chairman Benito Apollonio explained: “We were seriously considering calling it a day. For one reason or another we had lost three of our best players from last season, and were struggling for numbers.

“Some weeks we would only have nine players and we would have to call round just to get a full team together. The vibe was completely off, and nobody was enjoying it any more. It felt like we were playing out of habit.

“But in January we signed three or four players and that lifted the mood around the club. Everyone started having fun again.”

But even with the return of their smiles and swagger, nobody could have predicted what happened next.

Manager Joe Busst’s side powered on to join an elite list of clubs that have won the Division One title in the Camden Sunday League for three seasons in a row.

That was just one of The Gun’s historic feats in what would prove an unprecedented campaign.

On Sunday the club, named after a now closed east London pub that the players use to drink out of, came from a goal down to win the Camden Sunday League’s Michael McElligott Challenge Cup.

Trailing 1-0 at the break, Harry Clarke’s stooping header restored parity to force extra-time, where Gus Steele’s rasping free-kick sealed a 2-1 victory to spark energy-sapped scenes of celebration.

Having also won the Frank Sheridan Senior Cup, The Gun become only the third club ever to win the treble in the Camden Sunday League.

The celebrations didn’t stop there, though, as they also scooped county silverware in the shape of the Middlesex Intermediate Sunday Cup. An early glance at the record books indicates that’s a first.

Benito said: “It can be quite difficult to find out all the past winners of the various county competitions, but we are confident that we’re the first club from the Camden Sunday League to win the quadruple.

“Most of the time when clubs from the league compete at county level it’s in one of the London Cups, not the Middlesex Cup. So I’m almost 100 per cent sure we’re the first.”