Grantham & District Saturday League
HITS Consultancy Senior Cup
Second round
Ancaster 1
Greyhounders 1
(Ancaster won 5-4 on penalties)
After a morale-boosting win the previous week, Ancaster started positively with Watson and O’Brien causing problems on the flanks, whilst the visitors looked to go long as often as possible.
The deadlock was broken after good work by Reid and Hare, with the latter finding Watson who easily beat his man and gave the keeper no chance with an accurate drive into the bottom corner.
Greyhounders came out for the second half much the better side and the home defence had to be at their best to cope with attack after attack.
The equalising goal came from a well taken free kick gave Ancaster keeper Leeson no chance.
Leeson made two fine saves in the penalty shoot-out. Payne missed the chance to win the game, but De’ath stepped up to spare his blushes. Knox ,Noon, O’Brien and Jackson all found the net with their spot kicks.
Ancaster man of the match was Lewis Watson.
Cranmer Arms 3
White Swan Barrowby 4
The Swans went into this game probably underestimating their opposition due to their league position, and were made to pay with only 20 seconds gone on the clock.
Straight from the kick-off, Cranmer played the ball out wide to the right winger who skipped round Clarke to fire a ball into the Swans’ box. The ball took a massive deflection from the outstretched leg of Radford and looped over the stranded Flavell.
The Swans settled back into the game and got a free kick on the edge of the Cranmer box. Clarke put the ball into the box only for the unchallenged keeper to spill the ball straight into the path of Daykin who made it 1-1.
Cranmer could have easily dropped their heads but were awarded a penalty that was dispatched into the top right hand corner, leaving Flavell with no chance. The home side stretched their lead even further on 30 minutes, their constantly threatening forward getting his reward after bursting through the defence to round Flavell and coolly stroke home.
The visitors needed to get back into the game and five minutes kater Johnson played a defence-splitting pass that found Wilson who, after a sublime piece of control, smashed the ball into the top right hand corner of the net to send the Swans into the break 3-2 down.
It was not until the hour mark that the Swans got their breakthrough. King, who was a constant threat all game, scored on his debut after a Johnson shot was spilled into his path to level the affair.
Swans started to create some great chances and on 75 minutes they finally took the lead. After some good wing play from Clarke, he looked up to square the ball to an unmarked King who made no mistake to put his side 4-3 up.
The game could have easily gone to penalties but the Swans held on for victory and passaage into the next round of the competition.
Man of the match was Leigh Radford, sponsor was Grantham Honda, and Lorne Stewart sponsored the ball.