Tuesday, 20th August 2013
Extra Preliminary Round
Replay
St Margaretsbury v Hoddesdon Town
The Recreation Ground
Stansted Abbotts
SG12 8EH
K.O. 7.45pm
Half time 2-1
Final score 4-1
1-0 Michael Cooper 13
mins
2-0 Ricky Light 43
mins
2-1 Jamie Brandon
45+3 mins
3-1 Brett O’Connor 53
mins
4-1 Tom Davis 80 mins
Attendance 116
Miles travelled approximately 10.
Well it came as quite a surprise when I realised that the
replay was the following Tuesday (20th August ) and not a week on
Tuesday (27th August) like normal. This threw up a big problem. I
was on holiday with my 12 year old daughter, who hates football. On a positive
at least we were on holiday down here and not in Cumbria.
My daughter has been to Wembley for England v Bulgaria, Team
GB v Brazil (Female - Olympics 2012) and Japan v USA (Female Final Olympics
2012) also she’s been to The Millennium Stadium for Switzerland v Mexico and
Team GB v Uruguay (Male - Olympics 2012) as well as Walsall v Aston Villa for
the 125th Anniversary game in July.
I can truly say she’s given it her best shot. I can’t
complain. I also can’t take her to see St Margaretsbury v Hoddesdon Town in a
FA Cup Extra Preliminary Round Replay on a Tuesday night. Or can I?
“Can I go to the football please?” I asked my daughter.
“Why?” She replied. I then explained what I was trying to do. “If it’s your
dream then of course you should do it”, she replied. “I’ll stay at home and
watch The Big Bang Theory”, she added.
We decided to do the game and make a whole day of it. We
went to the cinema to watch “Planes” then we went off shopping, then Greggs
before going to Ware Lido for some fun in the sun. It was stupidly hot and we
suddenly started to feel dodgy. Proper dodgy. We decided it was best to go home
early. As it turns out, it was the right call to make. We got home and crashed.
I woke up at 6.15pm. We staggered our way over to St
Margaretsbury and I have to say we were feeling quite sorry for ourselves. The
car park was rammed. We finally found somewhere to dump the car and made our
way in.
What a fantastic looking place. The access point to the
ground was via the Cricket pitch. It was a warm summers evening. The sun was
setting. The Moon was rising. The birds were singing. The bugs were biting.
We made our way in. Richard was taking the money. “Have this
one on me”, he said. WOW! What a gesture, I felt like this, http://youtu.be/i9SSOWORzw4 I introduced
him to Anna. Programmes were bought and arrangements for picking up tickets
were made.
We bumped into Gary Stock (St Margaretsbury Chairman) who
asked if we’d got in OK. Hoddesdon Town staff came over and spoke to us.
Everyone seemed very happy to see Anna and Myself and made us feel very welcome
indeed.
As for the game it was good end to end stuff, but Mark
Teasdale (Hoddesdon Town) got himself sent off on 23 minutes and basically it
meant it was game over.
Just before half time this young lad walks up to me waves a
pint glass full of money at me and says “Half time raffle”, “What do I win?” I
asked. “Half the money”, replied a female voice from behind me. “WOW! That’s
fantastic”, I said, “You said that without moving your lips… do you do any
other tricks?” I guess you had to be there but it was funny.
But it wasn’t the funniest thing that happened that night,
that award went to Hoddesdon’s keeper (Jayden Purdue) who on 80 minutes, for
reasons known only to him decided to kick a St Margaretsbury player off the
ball. The press wrote that he caught him on the follow through. I didn’t see it
that way. Here’s how I saw it.
It's the second half. It's 3-1.
Hoddesdon are down to ten men. It's nearing 80 minutes or more. The ball is pumped
forward towards the Hoddesdon keeper, it’s a nothing ball, it’s lazy, it’s a
waste, its giving the ball back to Hoddesdon.
As the ball rolls towards the
Hoddesdon keeper, who's jogging towards the ball where he meets it near the
edge of the box and puts his foot through it, a St Margaretsbury player doing
what all good strikes should do, is chasing down the ball. He's never going to
beat the keeper to it, but he's doing the right thing.
Got it? Good. We've all seen it a
zillion times before, right. Except what happened next was simply the funniest
thing I think I've ever seen at a footy match.
The keeper beats the advancing
striker to the ball. Puts his foot through it. The ball sails down the pitch.
The striker then runs past the keeper... who for a reason known only to him
turns towards the striker and kicks him so hard he floored the advancing
striker.
Such was the shock as to what the
keeper did that no one questioned it. We all just stood around in complete
shock then some of us started to laugh. It was about 4 to 5 seconds before
someone shouted towards the Ref, shouldn't that be a foul...
The keeper just looked at the Ref
and said "WHAT!?" before walking... Straight red.
After the game, we popped into the bar to say our thanks and
goodbyes to everyone who made us feel so welcome.
It’s going to be a long two weeks before the next game.
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