Ely City 0 Woodbridge Town 2 - Ely egg-bound after Easter

Woodbridge have something of a reputation as a bogey team for Ely. They woodpeckers often finish below the Robins, but always seem to win at the Unwin. Funnily enough though, it was the first time that I actually managed to get to a game contested by the two teams in the 5 seasons that I have been following Ely.

The omens weren't looking too good for the Robins from the start. Both fullbacks were missing with Kenny Smith coming in for the injured Chris Sterecki, who has been a revelation this season, Richard Chadwick had to relinquish his usual role as centre forward to cover for left back Sam Parkinson and Ben Lawrence was missing at centre half. Later in the game Darren Coe, who was playing at centre back went off and his partner Adam Murray, who had an uncharacteristic nightmare of a game was sent off. Man of the match for Ely was goalkeeper Lee Pacey - when you lose 2-0 at home and the keeper is the best player it says it all really.

Ely managed to stay in the game for the first half and created a few chances, but none that really worried the Woodpeckers. The Robins when they attacked were often caught offside and both of their best chances of the first half came from headers: Murray heading wide on 23 and Wilson following suite on 26. Ross Gilfedder for the visitors was gifted a couple of chances by Murray who was having a nightmare in defence, but at the break it was 0-0, which at this point was probably a fair result.

Woodbridge were the better team in the second half though and if it hadn't been for a wonderful save from Pacey on 48 minutes they would have gone behind earlier. However on 53 minutes the visitors did take the lead. Tom Trevivian crossed for Craig Stuart and he put the visitors 1-0 up. On 58 minutes Pacey made another good save. He was beaten on 64 minutes, but Walters cleared off the line. On 68 minutes Pacey was called on again, and this time he managed to put a fine shot over the bar. Ely were still in the game, but it looked like they were going to struggle to get back on level terms. What was beginning to look like a hard job started to look like mission impossible on 80 minutes when Murray picked up his second booking in 10 minutes and a miserable afternoon for him and the team was confounded as he was given his marching orders. Gilfedder made it 2-0 with 4 minutes left and the visitors could have had a third at the death before the referee put us out of our misery.

That's what football is all about though and after a real treat of a game on Saturday a miserable game on Monday reminded us of why it's such a fascinating sport.