football rambles

 Saturday saw Downham take on Ely in the Eastern Counties League Play off Semifinal. Downham having finished higher had the advantage of playing at home and gave the Ely contingent the excuse of blaming everyone and everything apart from themselves in what was a routine win for Downham over a spineless Ely team. The first half was a cagey event, but when Sivakumar's shot was parried away and Edge jumped on it to give Downham the lead there was no looking back. For the rest of the half Downham dominated the Ely half, but you felt like they needed to put another chance away to make sure because Ely couldn't be that bad all game, could they? The answer to that question was no - for about 10 minutes. Ely came out firing in the first 10 minutes of the second half but didn't really worry the Downham defence. After this initial burst of energy from the visitors things went back to how they had been with Downham fully on top. On 68 minutes Royle burst through the fragile Ely defenc...

 Easter Monday saw Downham take on Heacham in a local derby. Downham were assured a place in the playoffs but still had an outside chance of winning the league. Unfortunately, a massive win for Brantham means that now if they are to get promoted, they'll have to do it the hard way. They also had to do it the hard way in this game. Despite starting the game kicking towards their favoured Wimbotsham End, they went down 1-0 within a few seconds of kick off. Downham fought back though and were level when some good work by Charlie Royle saw him finish off his own move and put the sides level. After this it was mainly Downham who were in the ascendancy but were perhaps trying a bit too hard to force the issue. They were given another lifeline late in the half when Heacham were reduced to 10 men when a stray elbow broke the nose of Matt Castellan  and the offending defender was given his marching orders. The second half continued in a very similar vain to the first with Downham attac...

 The bumper bank holiday weekend of football kicked off with play-off chasing King's Lynn playing at home to top of the table Scunthorpe. I don't think many people would have expected King's Lynn to win but an end to end game was settled by an Omotoya Gold goal on 16 minutes. It was a really good performance and a great day out.

 You can tell you are coming to the end of the season when you finally het to a game and you don't have to wear a coat. A beautiful spring day was accompanied by a good day out at a friendly club where both the sets of fans were friendly and it really was a good day out. The first half was low on chances, to be honest and one of the highlights was a Tesla behind the goal getting hit by an errant shot by a Bromsgrove player. That got a big cheer, although it turned out that it was a car that belonged to a Bromsgrove player. The better chances, what there were fell to Bromsgrove and it was them who went in ahead at the break. In the 39th minute Jack Newall, on loan from Burton put the visitors ahead scoring after his initial shot was saved. Bromsgrove went in 1-0 up at the break.  It was a very different Royston who came out all firing in the second half. Archie Locke put the Crows level in the 50th minute. Royston then started to try and force the issue and Harvey Becket scored...

 On Saturday I met up with Neil Park in Melton Mowbray for Melton V Sleaford in the United Counties Premier League North. Both teams are safe but in the lower half of the table, so I wasn't expecting too much, which was just as well. At least the club house had a good selection of beers and we stopped off before and after at the Boat Inn in town that was a decent boozer. The first half was quite uneventful and ended 0-0 with neither club really threatening but Melton probably having the upper hand.  In the second half it looked like Melton had snatched glory when Luther Mukanandafa scored in the 72 minute after just coming on to the pitch. It wasn't to be though as in the 86th minute Ben Ashall replicated what Mukanandafa had done by coming on and scoring after being on the pitch for only 4 minutes. A good day out, but not the best match ever!