Match Report
FA Cup 1st Qualifying Rnd
 Horsham YMCA 1 Duffield 31 |  Croydon 2Freeman 60 Henry 62 |
Date: 10th September 2005 Location: Gorings Mead
Source: Steve Payne, West Sussex County Times
YM CRASHED out of the FA Cup thanks to two min¬utes of madness against a Croydon side which should have been dead .and buried by the break.
The home team played all the football for the first 45 minutes, dominating the mid-field to such an extent that Croydon manager Dickson Gill was left shouting out: "Are we going to compete for anything in there?"
But YM shot themselves in the foot with two disastrous defensive mix-ups which seemed to take all the stuffing out of the side, but gave Croydon far more confidence.
YM manager John Suter, a massive fan of the FA Cup competition, was totally dis¬mayed after the game.
"I couldn't be more disap¬pointed. We didn't do our¬selves justice. We stopped playing and gifted the goals. That's £2,250 they've won [for getting into the next round] and more importantly in the draw on Monday."
It could have been 2-2 after six minutes as Croydon came out all guns blazing and YM's keeper Ian Chatfield had to smother the ball at Ray Freeman's feet after just nine seconds.
Then the visitors' Dean Thomas had a good cross cleared before YM hit back with Matt Duffield lobbing just over after a fumble by the keeper and then Nick Flint firing just wide.
Midway through the half, another Flint shot deflected off a defender and the keeper had to make a good save.
The breakthrough came on the half hour when the Croydon defence got in a total mess and the ball fell to Duffield whose gentle lob found the far corner.
Flint should have also scored three minutes later when he was a yard away from the goalmouth with the keeper in nomansland, but his shot was cleared off the line.
Croydon, known as 'The Trams' looked a spent force and, within minutes of the second half, Flint had another effort from a good position fire across the goalmouth.
But then the YM discipline went, the movement seized up, the passing went astray, players forgot their roles and Dean Garden and James Grant picked up silly book¬ings for speaking out of turn.
Croydon had spent the game trying to use the long ball to their pacey forwards and on the hour another attempt could easily have been cleared but a poor back-pass left Freeman with the simplest of tap-ins.
Two minutes later and Croydon's Jason Henry looked offside as he collected the ball on the right, though the danger should have been snuffed out earlier.
With YM's defence left floundering, Henry was left with a simple flick past Chatfield.
After that, Croydon were unable to mount another attack of note, but sadly nor could YM as the game petered out and the visitors were left delighted with their 'get out of jail card'.
Team: (4-4-2): Chatfield; Garden, Carter, Woodburn, Eldridge; Duffield; Potter, Grant (Fitzgerald 75), O'Hara; Russell, Flint (O'Carroll 79).