Tividale FC

Report

JW Hunt Cup

Round One
Tuesday 5th October 2021
Tividale 2-2 Warstones Wanderers

Warstones win 3-2 on penalties

We have had better nights

October is normally the busiest time of the season. That is because if your club is lucky enough to still be in the two national competitions you also have the flood of County FA’s and Charity games in midweek. Making it a Saturday/Tuesday month. So, when a manager tells a disgruntled player “He will get games”. This is the period he is talking about.

With our squad a little light on numbers, rotation for resting players is difficult. But manager Dave King left Luke Carter and Tom Hurdman out of the squad for this game, and he rested Hayden Reeves. Into the starting line-up came Dan Bryson, Ben Birch and Cameron Milne. This game also marked Elliott Hartley’s 100th appearance for Tividale.

Tividale started the game on the front foot and immediately pressed Warstones back. But on the first occasion they got out of their own half they went 1-0 up. A long ball found Daniel Lawrence with the freedom of Tividale in the 3rd minute and his cross was slammed home by Rhys Brown. The setback did not trouble the home side, and they were soon back at the Warstones back line and in the 4th minute Dan Smith saw his effort turned around the post by Warstone keeper Tom Greenhouse. From the resulting back post corner taken by Hartley, Matt Hunt headed the ball back into the danger zone, but Birch could not keep his header the right side of the crossbar.

On 9 minutes following a quickly taken free kick from Bryson, Hartley was left one on one with Greenhouse and he calmly lofted the ball over the advancing keeper and into the back of the net to draw Tividale level. Even after the goal Tividale kept up the pressure on Warstones and on 17 minutes Milne saw his free kick from the edge of the box go narrowly wide.

At the other end Tividale were worryingly making it too easy to get at them and on 19 minutes Joscelyn Allen maybe should have done better when he was through but fired over the bar. A minute later and Brown was through but this time a joint effort from Birch and Bryson cancelled out the threat. Apart from the odd defensive lapses the home side always looked more likely to add to their score and on 29 minutes Greenhouse did well to parry a Welding shot. The ball came out to Bustin who could only put the rebound over the bar. Then Hunt headed over a Welding corner

The visitors had the final decent chance of an eventful half when after a great run from Reece Cotterill he put in a brilliant cross, but it just evaded the lunge of Brown

Half Time: Tividale 1-1 Warstones Wanderers

The second half started poorly for the home side as within a minute Smith was sent to the sin bin for some excessive protesting. Even with the man disadvantage Tividale were still comfortable. Though the pace of Warstones attack did cause some alarms. In the 50th minute Bustin found Hartley with a telling pass but Greenhouse was again equal to his shot.

Within 5 minutes of Smith finishing his 10-minute sin bin spell he went down in pain and although many of the players and staff heard a crack, just the sound of him crying out in agony meant that there was no doubt that this was a bad injury. Play was stopped for 10 minutes while he was tended to and eventually stretchered off by players from both sides. An ambulance had been requested immediately by Gavin Blackwell our Sport’s Therapist but with a wait of up to 6 hours before one was available. One of our supporters Pete Dalley volunteered to take him to the local hospital.

The game restarted and almost immediately Tividale keeper Niall Maher pulled up with a tightening of his hamstring. With young Peter Hawk on the bench Maher was immediately substituted. Welding had another shot that he could not keep on target in the 71st minute. But 3 minutes later the home side were ahead. Milne finding Hartley with a neat pass and the striker made no mistake slotting the ball past Greenhouse. Hartley could have had his hat trick on 79 minutes, but he just could not get a Bustin ball under control and it ran away from him for Greenhouse to collect.

As the game went into the last 10 minutes plus stoppages Warstones with nothing to lose started to commit more men forward and Hawk did well to turn a Rhys Lampitt shot around the post. 6 minutes of normal time to go and Milne went down with what looked like an impact injury and had to be replaced. With the game now in injury time Bustin had a chance to settle it when he slalomed his way past three defenders but he skied his shot at the end of it. Then Allen saw his shot well held by Hawk.

With the game moving into the 12th minute of injury time Tividale looked to have held out despite the injuries, but Lawrence made one last forage into the Tividale area and Welding came across with a mistimed tackle and referee Adrian Hall had no choice but to point to the spot. Bradley Lawley placed the ball on the spot and with what turned out to be the last kick of the game found the bottom right-hand corner of Hawk’s net

Full Time: Tividale 2-2 Warstones Wanderers

 

And so on to penalties.

Tividale –        1-0    Hartley stepped up first and scored

Warstones –   1-1    Lampitt scores for Warstones

Tividale –        1-1     Greenhouse Saves from Welding

Warstones –   1-2   Cotterill scores

Tividale –        2-2     Bustin Scores

Warstones –    2-2    Hawk saves John Shaw’s penalty

Tividale –        2-2    Justin Edwards put’s it over the bar

Warstones –    2-3   Lawley scores his 2nd penalty of the night but Hawk got to it only to see it spin off his body across the goal line and in

Tividale –        2-3   McPike rolls his penalty wide of the upright

And so Warstones Wanderers are through to the second round. They hung in there and gave as good as they got but with 12 minutes of injury time Tividale should have seen out the game. Instead, they gave away a penalty, they gave Warstones the initiative and in the end missing three of five penalties also gave them the game.

But the result paled into insignificance when in the early hours of the next morning the news came through and confirmed our worse fears that Dan Smith had broken his ankle and would be wearing a protective boot for at least 6 weeks. All of us here at Tividale wish “Wonder” all the best and pray for a full and speedy recovery. Hopefully Niall and Cameron are only short-term injuries and will be back with us very soon.

Penalties: Tividale 2-3 Warstones Wanderers

Tividale: – 1. Niall Maher (13. Peter Hawk 71), 2. Cameron Milne (14. Dan Bryson 83) , 3. Brad Welding, 4. Dan Bryson, 5. Ben Birch, 6. Matt Hunt,  7. Darragh Bustin, 8. Curtis Cocking, 9. Dan Smith (12. Jordan Edwards 70), 10. Lewis McPike, 11. Elliott Hartley

Unused Subs: – 15. TJ Munthali