Saracens Head for the Next Round

 

Hopperational Details
Date & Venue	Sunday 25th August at Emmbrook Sports & Social Club, Lowther Road
Result	Wokingham Town 3 Cheltenham Saracens 3 (3-4 on penalties after 90 minutes)
Competition	FA Vase 1st Round Qualifying
Hopstats	Ground 789 on my lifetime list, here because of its Sunday scheduling. Wokingham’s ground is shared with the town cricket club.
Context
A knockout game between two sides from different leagues. Wokingham (aka the Satsumas) are in the Combined Counties Premier North and Cheltenham are in the Hellenic League Division One. The FA website and Full-Time seem to be stubbornly displaying the host club’s previous name as Wokingham & Emmbrook.
Match Report
This match was not decided until the sudden death of the sixth Wokingham penalty, which was skied. It was a suitably dramatic end to a see-saw game. Wokingham were seemingly in control at half-time with a 3-1 lead. They scored early through Jack Webb, conceded an equaliser but then scored twice in first-half stoppage time with a double from Connor Richardson. The second goal was almost a great save by the Saracens stopper but the fierce shot went in off the post, and Richardson’s second was a neat near-post volley from a corner that caused much joy among the home coaching staff. However, the visitors kept their hopes alive with a route one goal just after the restart, the finish being a neatly executed lob. The game became less fluent, the dugout personnel became more agitated. The breeze picked up too, which didn’t help. Cheltenham drew level with another route one goal, made from a quickly taken freekick in the centre circle. The bounce seemed to deceive the home keeper Max West (more of him later) and it was an easy rolled-in finish. The game became tetchy and ended in a flurry of yellow cards while I was downloading the competition rules to confirm that we would have a penalty shootout after 90 minutes. Cheltenham went first and scored their first two, before their keeper saved Wokingham’s second. When he touched their next one on to the bar, so that Cheltenham were 3-1 up, it looked as if the visitors were home and dry. But Cheltenham missed their fourth, Wokingham had to score and did, and then Cheltenham’s fifth, taken by their keeper, was saved by his opposite number West. Hero to temporary zero for the visiting keeper. Once again, Wokingham scored, and so we were level at 3-3 after five. Into sudden death, and the record books will show that Cheltenham scored before watching their opponents’ next kick go over the top. All good fun for the passing neutrals, of which there were several if rucksacks and carrier bags are anything to go by. Shades of Green as the keepers go head-to-head The final kick goes over Cheltenham Saracens will play Roman Glass St George in the next round. For the record, their scorers were Callum Debonis, Stuart Midwinter and James Barnes-Wills, but not necessarily in that order! Apologies for not being able to identify the Saracens goalkeeper by name in this post. Black mark on my hopperblog card for these bureaucratic failings.
Pix
Wokingham in Orange-and-Black. Never seen this before! Back of the net! 1-1
Goalkeeper Top Colour Stats Update
The background to this, and the latest keeper top colour league table, is here on this dedicated page. Today, with both keepers in Green, albeit of different shades, a draw was predicted. Pre-match Prediction based on Keeper Top Colour: Prediction: Draw Was the prediction correct? Yes if you take the score at 90 mins % of correct predictions so far 49% (82 from 168)
What Next?
I’m heading even further west tomorrow (Bank Holiday Monday), into Cornwall, to tick off Helston Athletic, newly promoted into Step 4.