A first league defeat since 2008-2009 season and one of the worst displays of refereeing we've encountered for a while. Would like to point out that the result was deserved, but so disappointing to be denied opportunities by the referee.
Bad news was on the cards from the off as Nathan and Aaron called in ill, Scott pulled out the day before. With Coops suspended, Peacey on holiday and Titch/Goode injured, it was an emergency only bench containing Bez, Malc and manager Faulkner
On the back of last weeks resulted we remained at 4-4-2, but with Seb in goal and Maltby at left back. Joey was carrying a dead leg and all in all it was a pretty patched up starting eleven.
Both sides went on the attack from the frst whistle in a breathless first half. Seb made a great double save from one half of Jedward whilst Trinder had what looked to be a good penalty appeal turned down and missing a couple of chances that he'd bury when fit you'd like to think. Cubbington opened the scoring when a ball was left by our defence and their number 10 lobbed home, for 0-1! BIFC got back into it soon after when Trinder was hauled down again in the box and Benno tucked away the penalty for 1-1! It was end to end stuff and a stray backpass from Cub's midfielder fel kindly for Jordan to poke past the keeper for 2-1! shortly after and it felt like a weight had been lifted. Sadly the weight had just moved to the legs of some BIFC players and the number 10 managed to complete a first half hat trick after some woeful defending. The build up to one of the goals included Seb playing a left footed pass across the box into nowehere, Maltby shanking his attempted clearance and another defender standing off his man whilst the ball got lashed home, truly shocking and out of keeping with our normal style. 2-2! and then 2-3! in the blink of an eye. Half time
The second half continued to be played at full throttle and was end to end stuff that was entertaining for any neutrals that may have been there for some reason. With Bishops looking to consolidate, it was a body blow when that annoying twin crossed from the right, and the ball took an awkward bounce past an unchallenged Seb, into the net to gasps of horror all around 2-4! After that there was a spellwhere Cubbington could of annhilated us , we rode our luck as they hit the bar and post with the keeper stranded. Seb came out to be replaced by Joey and the day was summed up with a string of poorly taken goal kicks going straight to Cubbington players. The word frustrating doesn't really do it justice! We were having some joy going forward though, in particular down the right and when Caz put Jordan through he was crudely bought down in the box for another penalty. Quite why the referee didn't feel it appropriate to caution the player who had just denied a goalscoring opportunity was beyond everyone. Benno scored his second pen anyway to make it 3-4! With 20 minutes remaining BIFC threw everything at them and were making chances. Jordan then picked up the ball on the edge of his own box and burst past the left midfielder and left back, running on to his own ball and a clear run in on goal. Inexplicably the linesman flagged for offside, and despite this being a blatant error/act of gamesmanship the referee failed to spot that Jordan was the same player who had run 40 yards in a straight line with the ball and clearly couldn't be offside!! The linesman was barely out of nappies and shouldn't be involved as an under 16 (just my opinion..) but the ref had made another mistake. Now totalling 1 missed penalty, 1 failed clear red card and now a phantom offside, a very poor day at the office for him. We had one more great chance when Whitey burst past the left back and his cross was tantalisingly close to being converted by Matt and Adam Trinder..FULL TIME!
I did ask the ref at the end about his errors and he apologised for his mistake in the "offside" debacle. As I said at the start, it shouldn't detract from Cubbington deserving the points though
Gutting to lose, but a decent spirit for the last twenty and should have a stronger squad for Radford on Sunday.
