Match Report
FA Cup: Extra Preliminary Round
| Horsham YMCA 3 Taylor 24 Young 45 Durrant 90 |
Gosport Borough 3 Middleton 32 White 87 Lindsey 90 |
Date:23rd August 2003 Location:Gorings Mead
Source Jenny Hardcastle, West Sussex County Times
The heartbreak of the FA Cup was painfully evident at Gorings Mead on Saturday when angry YM fans watched Gosport equalise in the seventh minute of injury time. Peter Durrant looked to have sent YM into the Preliminary Round of the competition when he put the home side 3-2 up on 90 minutes, dinking a ball from Phil Churchill into the top corner.
But as the crowd bayed for the final whistle referee Mr Roots ignored all pleas for mercy and played on until a long free-kick from inside Gosport's own half was flicked on and knocked in by Graham Lindsey.
It was a cruel finish to a game which had already twisted and turned once — Gosport sub Michael White had brought the game back to 2-2 on 87 minutes after YM had led all the way through the second half.
Manager John Suter was understandably peeved afterwards. "It was a game we thought we'd won and we hadn't," he said.
"There seemed a lot of injury time played — six minutes 48 seconds — where he found that from I don't know.
"But when push comes to shove we conceded two goals from free-kicks inside our own half —dreadful goals to give away. After we'd gone 3-2 up we didn't play well, we didn't keep the ball, kept giving it away and in the end we got punished for it.
"It was disappointing because we thought we'd won it when Peter Durrant scored."
The first half seemed like a different game after the tension at the end. YM started badly, giving away numerous corners and free-kicks, putting pressure on themselves. Paul Young and Gil Taylor were restricted to chasing long balls and hoping the Gosport defence made a mistake, a strategy which looked a bit hopeless until a fortunate ricochet Out of the messy midfield saw Taylor sprinting through.
He kept his head and knocked it in through the keeper's legs to put YM undeservedly ahead.
A minute later Joel O'Hara almost played Taylor in again and YM suddenly looked like a different team. Paul Charman burst clear and should have played it wide earlier, however O'Hara executed a beautiful spin and charged into the area but he was stretching and couldn't get any power behind his shot.
But YM were still giving away a lot of free-kicks and corners and just after the half-hour mark a free-kick from the right eluded Scott Kenward and landed on the head of Luke Middleton who sent it past the flailing keeper.
Kenward made amends shortly afterwards when he pulled off a brilliant double save from yet another header by Middleton, and it proved to be the making of the second YM goal.
While Gosport were caught upfield, Carden quickly scooted up the other end and squared it to Young who put YM ahead just before the break.
YM looked more solid in the second half, which was lucky as the sun came out and it was a question of who would melt first.
Both teams knuckied down and produced a couple of decent chances, with another great save from Kenward and a near miss from Young until the frantic final minutes.
"It was a ridiculous game really," said Suter. "I thought we played poorly in the first half and came in 2-1 up. We scored twice from three attacks.
"We did play better in the second half and they possibly equalised against the run of play. To come back from that was very credible but then we should have been knocking the ball into the corners, we should have had better possession.
"Football's full of twists and turns like that. It's just so frustrating, it's so disappointing when something like that happens."
Team: Kenward; Carden, Qakes, Sleat, Fenn; Charman, Andrews, Bird, O'Hara (Duffield 70); Taylor (Durrant 86), Young (Churchill 73)