After the excitement of Stamford Bridge the night before I found myself at rather more humble surroundings of AFC Hornchurch's Bridge Avenue, Upminster for another cup final. This one was between Southminster and Rayleigh, who had both had decent seasons up till now. Sadly the game failed to excite anyone in the crowd as the quality of both sides play was poor and the finishing was abysmal to say the least. But alas both teams battled hard and fought there corner and Rayleigh edged the first half while the second half was slightly more even although Southminster did have the ball in the net twice, both from Grieg Taylor, but the offside flag, which was up more times then a jet fighter, denied them the goals. The phrase of the day was 'over the goal' or 'over the top', thus describing the kind of shooting that was going on out there. There was more excitement above our heads in the main stand listening to one of the league officials scrambling around on the roof above trying to retrieve a ball from within the jungle of trees that festoon the roof of the main stand. So anyway back to the game and it was no surprise that 0-0 was the result after extra time, so penalties it was and the boys from Rayleigh triumphed 4-1 on the spot kicks. Someone had to win it eventually, it was just who had the nerve at the end. Well done Rayleigh, commiserations Southminster.
No comments:
Post a Comment