Once again local rivals faced up with Stamford travelling to Boston for the first round of the WFA 60+ National Cup.
A tight affair was expected and that's exactly what resulted with both teams playing some excellent football in a match that could’ve gone either way.
Strollers started the stronger and took the lead when Taff Lovesey slid a free kick into the path of Jimmy Watson, who buried his shot in off the inside of the right post.
The game continued as an end-to-end affair, but keepers Danny Tempest and Dave Moore were in good form, and it wasn't until a mix up in the Strollers defence resulted in the ball falling to Chris Bradford who took his chance well to equalise.
The second half started in a similar until David Kelby was given a blue card for a tackle to the back of the heels, which was ruled as a DOGSO offence (Denial Of Goal Scoring Opportunity) also resulting in a penalty for Boston. Moore made his first penalty save of the day though to keep the scores level.
A man short, our lads were now having to defend deeply but shortly after the penalty save, we broke away and received a penalty ourselves when a defender accidentally backed into his own area. Jez Norris stepped up to take it, but Danny Tempest held his ground and made a good save too – goalkeepers still on top!
Strollers were now forced to dig in, a man down and with Boston pushing hard to go ahead. Paul Beard defended valiantly as he battled with his team mates to keep Boston at bay. Some relief was found when Kelby returned from the sin bin, but even so, Boston continued to push us hard and had the lions share of the later chances. That said, both teams had opportunities to score but once again found Moore and Tempest unbeatable.
With the game ending 1-1 it moved into three penalties each.
Moore saved the first Boston effort but things were evened up when Tempest saved from Watson.
On to the second round and Moore made his third penalty save of the day. Lovesey came forward for the Strollers and was able to tuck his penalty into the left side corner. Advantage Stamford.
Ady Wood stepped up for Boston’s final penalty with pressure on, needing to score to take the penalty shoot out to sudden death. Frustratingly for Wood, his shot struck the underside of the bar and bounced away from goal to progress the Strollers through to the next round of the cup.
Boston named Dave Moore as man of the match, but both keepers deserved this accolade with two excellent performances by Dave and Danny Tempest.
This was a highly competitive game, played in great spirit and was a great advert for walking football, especially given the growing crowd that had built up watching whilst they awaited their own matches. Kudos too to referee Dave Bent who kept the game flowing.
Squad:
Tim Marsden
Dave Moore
Taff Lovesey
Colin Barrett-Treen
Jez Norris
Paul Beard
David Kelby
Jimmy Watson
(unused reserve keeper Paul Newiss)