Football in the twighlight zone

The result of Ely's game against Mildenhall yesterday was the same result as the reserves on Saturday a 4-2 defeat. If the manner of it wasn't that unusual, some dreadful defending and petulance on the part of the players, the rest of the game was a bit strange. Not least of all in that there was a fairly big crowd and Sean actually behaved himself

Simon Charlton, the new Mildenhall manager must have wondered what he had got himself into when Richard Chadwick headed Ely ahead on 8 minutes, but Ely couldn't keep their lead and a couple of minutes later a fantastic free kick from Gareth Simpson found it's way into the top left corner. On 25 minutes Ely's misery was compounded when Simpson put the visitors ahead. Ely continued to fight but couldn't pull a goal back and went in at the break 2-1 down.

Trevor Munns obviously told Ely to put up a fight in the second half, but perhaps they shouldn't have taken his advice so literally.

Ely certainly came out fighting in the second half in every sense of the word, but things were to get weird, very weird. Mildenhall were first given the chance to extend their lead when they were awarded a penalty for a hand ball in the area by Brady Stone. Brady was given his marching orders for it and although the Cambrige News suggested it was for the handball saving a certain goal for Mildenhall I don't think it was because of that, but because of the amount of back chat he gave the ref. Anyway without their captain and with a penalty that would have put them 3-1 down things were looking bleak for Ely. That was until the penalty taker stepped up and took what was one of the worst penalties I have ever seen. If you enlarge the photo at the top you will just about to be able to see the ball flying over the fence into the field full of rabbits.

Ely were further buoyed a couple of minutes later when David Cooper was sent off for Mildenhall for lashing out on the sideline at an Ely player in front of all the Ely fans who were baying for the referee to even the numbers out. He duly obliged and it was 10 a side.

Ely then on 60 minutes evened the scores up when Andy Petit scored. For a few minutes it looked like Ely would be the team that would go onto win the game and Mildenhall even started time wasting with half an hour to go. However, Ely couldn't hold onto the lead again and John Sands nodded home for the visitors.

If going down again wasn't bad enough things were just about to get even worse for Ely in a minute of weirdness/ madness after Mildenhall took the lead. Dave Smith was sent off for the Robins for hitting a Mildenhall player and he was quickly followed by Tony Brown who argued the referee's decision.

So for the last 25 minutes it was 10 v 8 and it looked very strange out there with so few players on the pitch. To be fair to Ely they continued to battle and Munns made some decent substitutions that could have paid dividends. However the chances of Ely getting an equaliser were slim given the circumstances and if they had it would have made the match even stranger. Instead however with just a couple of minutes left Tom Young was able to beat the Ely defence (defender) and make the score 4-2 to Mildenhall.

An entertaining but weird derby day was had by all.