Hawkhurst Utd Reserves 3 Herstmonceux II 3 AET (5-4 Penalties)
The Reserves beat Herstmonceux II to progress to the Semi Final of the Eastbourne Coach Finishers Challenge Cup but it needed a penalty shoot-out to separate the two sides as the game finished 3-3 after 90 minutes and extra time.
The Hawks raced into two goal lead after just ten minutes as they cut through the Cuex’s rather static defense with strikes coming from Anthony Byrne and Tom Sayer. The Hawks then maybe sensing a routine victory was on the cards after such a flying start did seem to sit back on their lead after that which in turn allowed the opposition back into the match and it was Hermonceux that pulled a goal back before the break to go in 2-1 at half time.
This seemed to kick us back into action and it was the Hawks who restored their 2 goal advantage with another excellent strike from Sags. Minutes later Anthony could have put the fixture to bed but his long range effort agonisingly came back of the bar. Again though when we looked in total control we allowed the opposition back into the game as they pulled two goals back in quick succession, the second of which though was a quality strike from all of 40 yards from a misplaced throw out from Dan.
As fatigue set in on a heavy pitch both teams cancelled each other out for the remainder of the ninety minutes with te only highlights being veteran warhorse Wiggins taking a Baxter clearance full in the chops and Darren Poole crashing an excellent Jamie Young cross against the bar in the final few minutes thus condemning the crowd (loosely termed) to a further 30 more minutes of hypothermia.
Extra time still couldn’t separate the teams although the most laughable penalty you’ll ever see was awarded to the opposition as a sniper in a tree must have taken out a Hermonceux forward after he went down with absolutely no contact from anyone in a red and white shirt. Fortunately guilt must have got the better of him as he rolled the resulting pen harmlessly towards the Scout hut.
So after 120 freezing minutes a place in the cup semi final would be decided by pens, 2 visiting oddballs from the asylum more commonly known as Sandhurst (Louis and Conrad) filmed the excitement as it unfolded (Channer attempted but found it to cold to operate his phone).
All of the Hawks pens were dispatched with varying levels of skill/jammieness and Dan did his bit by keeping out two, although this was reduced to one after the ref had spotted some lateral movement by Dan on his line (this was probably just wind though). But one was enough as Toddy (Andy) stepped up to take penalty number 5 knowing conversion would mean victory for Pete’s boys.
Everyone held their breath and Chandler commented ‘well at least he’ll smash it, God knows where it’ll end up but at least he’ll smash it!’ But fair play to Toddy he stroked his pen top left with all the coolness of his older brother, although Chandler’s comments were vindicated as Andy later admitted that it was meant to go bottom right !
But who cares, an entertaining game and the Reserves are through to their first semi final for a good few years.
:lol:).
