FA Cup Extra Preliminary Round Replay

21 August 2007

 

Bishop Auckland 1 : Chester le Street Town 2

 

 

Team: Chris Porter, James Crossman, Paul Crager, Paul Griffith, Craig Winter (Wayne Flanagan 69 mins), Scott Richards, Joe Fairish, Paul Harvey, Dane Wilson (Dale Mendum 58 mins), Gavin Parkin, Bryan Stewart

 

Bishops crashed out of the FA Cup with a poor performance against moderate opposition.

 

Hesitation in the Bishops defence led to the first chance of the game on five minutes but Porter saved the day with a flying save to push the ball past the left hand post.

 

Gavin Parkin broke free of the defence on ten minutes to fire in a low shot which was well saved by Chester’s keeper.

 

On 16 minutes the referee leapt at the opportunity to award Chester their second innocuous penalty of the tie and the spot-kick was converted to make it 1-0.

 

Bryan Stewart brought Bishops back into the game on 23 minutes when his cross shot was deflected home by a defender’s leg.

 

Bishops played some decent football without really threatening goal.  A great move on 33 minutes saw the ball swept from right back across to the left of midfield and back to the right wing where Joe Fairish had the chance to shoot for glory, but only ended up in hitting the side netting.

 

Paul Harvey picked up a yellow card for a high tackle on 43 minutes.

 

Bishops were 2-1 down on 48 minutes when a Chester forward headed home unchallenged twelve yards from goal.

 

Mendum replaced the injured Wilson soon after and it was the left winger who caused many of the problems from then on, but without the height of Wilson in the area, Bishops looked increasingly toothless.

 

Mendum made two great runs with the first beating three men before cutting the ball back but Parkin was unable to capitalise.  Minutes later Mendum beat two men, hurdled a scythe, keeping on his feet when a tumble would surely have warrented a penalty, and fired low but the shot was saved and the rebound fell safely for the visitors.

 

The remaining spells of the match were a masterclass in timewasting as Chester ran time off the clock.  The referee only once took action, when Chester’s No.10 decided to throw the ball over the perimiter fence while waiting to take a throw in, but otherwise seemed happy to allow the Chester physio to amble backwards and forwards across the pitch at regular intervals until the final whistle was blown.

 

 

 

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