Extra time blues in the vase

Another Tuesday and another cup replay at the Unwin. This time Ely City took on Gorleston, who play in the division below of the Eastern Counties League in a replay of the vase qualifying round after drawing 1-1 away on Saturday.

We all expected not to be getting an early night and that was the one front we were not disappointed on.

Ely rested several players, but still had out what looked like a fairly competitive side. However, the Robins really lacked fire power up front despite starting with old favourite Andy Pettit and Nick Impey, who always played as a striker before, but has looked a lot livelier since his move to midfield in pre-season.

It was Gorleston who should have taken the lead in another game that lacked goal mouth action on 30 minutes when some brave keeping from Lee Pacey and a bit of luck kept them out. Gorleston repeated the move one minute later, but the result was the same. On several occassions during the game Ely's ill advised offside trap and a fast Gorleston midfield could have undone the defence. However, thanks to poor finishing, luck and Pacey being on form the two incidents around the half hour mark were pretty indicative of Gorleston's night.

Ely on the other hand seemed to rely on hoofing the ball up field as fast as they could and hoping for a defender to give a throw in away so that Ben Lawrence could launch a throw in into the box. It was one of these moves that led to a 'goal' on 35 minutes. Bruiser Brown looked to have headed the ball clean in. The referee gave a goal, but the linesman saw an Ely player handlle the ball into the net. I'm not sure if anyone else did, although the ref later claimed he'd seen it and somebody said that they caught it on video (which I haven't seen, but if you happen to stumble on this post I would like to see it).

Anyway, to cut a long story short the second half was pretty much the same as the first with Gorleston doing everything but finding the back of the net and Ely lacking any imagination apart from the hit and hope or throw and hope tactics of the first half. The major incident was in the 84th minute when Chadwick who had been on for all of 3 minutes kicked out at one of the defenders while he was on the floor and got sent off. Again the referee missed the incident and consulted the linesman who also appeared to have missed the incident, but had heard the Ely fans saying that Chadders had been lucky he hadn't seen it.

The game finally drifted into extra time and in the second half of stoppage time Gorlesto finally got the ball into the back of the net on what was really a bad night for Gorleston strikers, a bad night for Ely City and a bad night for the officials. Here's hoping for a bit more entertainment whenn the FA Cup returns to town on Saturday!

Comments

Anonymous said…
neil if its not to much to ask as you seem to come to most of our matches i would love for your help on a matter in this game, obviously the sending off was stupid on my half but in the referees Second!! report it was said that i touched the linesman on the face a swore at him ! which never happened (swearing maybe) and it seems as this has become a big problem for me now ( after thinking nothing of it) i would like it if you could take some time in to writing a couple of lines for me to give your view on the events as i might get a massive or indefinite ban! thanks again Richard Chadwick
Neil said…
Obviously I'd be only too happy to help as I was standing very near the linesman when you got sent off and can verify that what the referee's report says is not true. After the sending off you walked straight off the pitch and didn't approach the linesman. I think you might have sworn, as you said but I wouldn't have said that it was even clear that this was directed at the linesman. To me it just seemed like frustration. Please let me know if you want me to contact someone officialy, as the report doesn't seem to reflect the true incident. I'm only too happy to help in anyway I can, so please get in touch again with the details of anyone I should write to.
Anonymous said…
thanks very much Neil, all ive been told is to write my side of the story and to give it in on saturday at yarmouth but im sure if you contacted bob or jean or Derick Oakley at our club( numbers on web ) that yours would help my cause much much more, but in most or all cases the cambs fa will always side by their officials so fingers crossed! thanks again Neil
Neil said…
OK. I'll give them a bell tomorrow and see if there is anything I can do. Good luck with it and good luck on Saturday too.
All the best,
Neil

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