Last-Eight Leiston Leave it Late

Hopperational details
Date & Venue	Saturday 12 February 2011 at Victory Road
Result	Leiston 2 Long Buckby 1
Competition	FA Vase Round 5.  These two clubs play their league games at step 5 in the Eastern Counties Premier and United Counties Premier Leagues respectively
Hopping	Venue #371 and the 65th new one for the season
This match in one sentence
Leiston were one down at half-time but came back and then managed to land a late final blow in a hard-fought contest.
So what?
Leiston reach the last eight of this competition for the first time in their history and join Coalville Town, Dunston UTS, King’s Lynn Town, Poole Town, Rye United, Torpoint Athletic and the holders Whitley Bay in the proverbial hat for Monday’s draw.
The drama unfolds
Both sides tried hard to impose themselves on the game in an end-to-end start.  Long Buckby soon began to look physically stronger on a wet pitch.  They had already drawn one sharp save from Leiston’s keeper Jamie Stannard before Fazel Koriya crossed from the right and Ashley Robinson only narrowly missed making connection.  This proved to be a dress rehearsal, as Long Buckby lost the ball on the half-way line, Koriya advanced into the vacant left-back space and crossed low again.  This time Robinson couldn’t miss.  Leiston almost equalised immediately and may have begun to feel that it was not going to be their day.  0-1 at half-time. This first clip captures the end-to-end nature of the game just before the first goal. Leiston started the second half strongly – perhaps a Sizewell-powered nuclear hairdryer had been used by manager Mark Morsley?  Long Buckby began to tire and Leiston began to find space up front.  Nevertheless, their first goal had an element of good fortune.  A right-wing corner from Stuart Boardley ended up in the net when Stephanou tried to palm it away but only deflected it in.  To be honest, I had it down as an o.g. although it was announced that Danny Cunningham had got a touch.  I don’t think so, but 1-1 nevertheless with 20 minutes to go. Leiston’s luckless Michael Brothers then nearly broke the post in half with a shot across the keeper, and we looked at our watches and asked the assistant ref whether we were facing extra time (indeed we were).  At this point, Leiston were well on top and had several more half chances from corners and crosses, as these two clips show. Right on 90 minutes, another Boardley set-piece cross, this time from the left, was bundled in at the far post by home captain David Head.  Cue joyous celebration for a 2-1 scoreline. There was still time for Long Buckby to win a direct free-kick which Greg Ling smacked off the crossbar with Stannard nowhere near.  Fair play to Long Buckby for their contribution to a great day for the passing neutral.  Final score 2-1.
Alternative activity of equal excitement for tourists in Snape
Trust me on this one - go to a concert in the unusual and acoustically astonishing setting of the Snape Maltings Concert Hall, just a few miles away from Leiston and home of the Aldeburgh Music Festival.  I am not a fan of Benjamin Britten and/or Peter Pears myself, but I saw the National Youth Wind Ensemble perform Michael Torke’s “Rapture” here in 2003 with Colin Currie as the percussionist.  Great stuff, the equivalent of extra-time and a 20-19 penalty shootout.
A snippet from the programme
No, Leiston FC, I am giving you some stick for this.  Your so-called “Ladies Page” with two risqué jokes that I would not want as a parent to have to explain to a young child, and one of which is dependent on perceptions of average human penis length, is inappropriate and unfunny.  No place in a football programme in my opinion.
What I learned today
Leiston is the nearest town to the Sizewell B nuclear power station, a pressurised water reactor design that has been active since the mid 90s and is capable of producing around 3% of the nation’s energy needs.  These days, British Energy is part of the EDF group.  Sizewell A is the big ugly concrete thing that is now being decommissioned, and Sizewell B has a distinctive white golfball structure.  Consultations about a Sizewell C are under way. Sizewell A, B (just about visible) and a space for C If you want to read about the technical design of the reactor and read the monthly newsletters (e.g. no-one affected by work related accidents in December 2010 and the staff raised over £2300 for charity) then start with http://www.british-energy.co.uk/pagetemplate.php?pid=96 If you want to see how much the plant has allegedly cost and how much more could be gained from wind power along the east coast, start at http://www.greenpeace.org.uk/nuclear/sizewell-b-the-facts If you need to know about protestors in fish masks highlighting the threat of coastal erosion, try http://www.edp24.co.uk/news/education/sizewell_b_power_station_still_shut_down_1_793360 If, however, you can’t be bothered with energy politics and just want to vote on kitten cuteness there is always http://kittenwar.com/
Something random
Mr Holderness and a melée The referee for this match was Mr Barry Holderness from Essex and he had a decent game as far as I am concerned.  I noticed his pre-match tweet as @BCHREF saying how pleased he was to be appointed to this fixture, and a post-match tweet about how tired he was.  I think a tweeting ref may be a good thing in the interests of balance, so I trust you will all follow.
What Next?
Hopefully a local-ish hop on Tuesday evening.  For the record, I tried to get to Shepshed Dynamo last week but ended up stuck on the M1 northbound for an hour-and-a-half.  I decided not to blog about the Chicken Tikka at Teddington Services.