Thurlow Nunn South Play Off Final, Tuesday 13th May
I was over at my spiritual home of football for the second time in nine days, Spa Road, Witham, for the eagerly anticipated Thurlow Nunn South play off final which saw league runners up Hackney Wick host fourth placed Rayleigh Town for the chance to earn promotion to the next level in the non league pyramid, Step Five.
Wick had agonisingly missed out on automatic promotion and the title to Harlow Town on goal difference after both sides had amassed 92 points from their 38 games, that was a good seventeen points ahead of anyone else in the division, despite this though Wick would have to go through the play off system if they wanted to join Harlow in Step Five next season.
They managed to gain some revenge on Harlow by defeating them in the League Challenge Cup final at Aveley on Bank Holiday Monday, but promotion was their main goal & after Wick had seen off Hutton in the semi final 4-1, giving them a shot at promotion in this final, Rayleigh themselves were just happy to be in this final in what was their first season in Senior Football.
Their semi final, after a delay due to well documented issues involving AS London, their semi final opponents, dating back to late last year after their game at home to Cannons Wood was abandoned for reasons I will not go into, meant that semi final didn't take place till a week before this final, and once the game was determined to be played at Thames Road, Rayleigh's home ground for the last two seasons, Town netted a surprising 4-1 victory over a side that had beaten them three times in the season.
Wick were clear favourites for this final though, they had netted 4-1 & 5-2 victories over Rayleigh during the league campaign, and Wick had finished a massive eighteen points above them over the campaign, however, that mattered very little in this contest as both now had an equal chance to gain promotion on the night, such is the way with the play offs, but it was clear to see from the off that Wick were very much the ones to take control of this contest.
Only three minutes had elapsed when they broke the deadlock, a lovely ball in from the right found Issa Sidibe completely free in the six yard box, and he duly powered a header home to give them the perfect start to this one and settle any nerves prior to this big game, for Rayleigh though it was a disastrous start and the only positive being they had most of the game to find a way back.
This did not look likely though as Wick dominated the opening exchanges, and in the 25th minute broke in devastating fashion to double their lead and were threatening to blow their opponents away, the goal saw a fast break down the left, and after a shot was saved, Adam Cheniti was on hand to bury the rebound, and Wick were in total control.
The visiting keeper had plenty to do in the opening forty five minutes, the hosts one did have a few crosses to deal with but the visitors didn't have a shot on target until first half stoppage time, although this was weak and easy for the keeper, and at half time Wick were two goals to the good and in pole position to grab promotion.
A note of caution though, Wick had thrown a two goal lead away in their penultimate league outing against second bottom Newbury Forest, a game that effectively cost them the title, so Rayleigh knew if they could get a goal back then things could get interesting, they certainly were much more competitive in a second half that saw the ball in Wick's final third a lot more. The hosts had certainly gone off the boil for sure and taken their foot off the gas.
And with around fifteen minutes left Rayleigh's pressure and vast improvement from the first period looked to have got a route back into the game when they were awarded a penalty kick, but what happened next was something I'd never ever seen in 35 years of watching football.
Javed Irish, hero from the semi final win against AS London, was given the task of taking the kick, but after the referee blew his whistle he began a slow stuttering run which he briefly stopped just before he went to take the kick, before firing the kick into the net, however, the referee had blown once this happened and awarded an indirect free kick as he had deemed that Irish had broken law 14.2 under IFAB, which states that "feinting to kick the ball once the kicker has completed the run-up (feinting in the run-up is permitted); the referee cautions the kicker".
It's a law that i'd certainly not been aware of, and I'd never seen it applied before, Rayleigh were obviously very annoyed about the outcome, and it also meant no goal and they were still two goals behind, and to be honest this kind of killed the momentum for the visitors and they never really threatened a comeback after that.
It was therefore left to Wick to see the remainder of the game out and earn themselves victory and promotion to what will probably be the Essex Senior League next season, exciting times ahead for them, for Rayleigh, yes tonight was disappointing but they had played out a very good season so should be proud of themselves for achieving what they did in their first season at this level.
Well done to Wick though, they deserved to gain promotion after the season they had, onwards and upwards for them no doubt.....
Full time Hackney Wick 2 Rayleigh Town 0
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