The weather was supposed to be wet but in the end no rain fell the pitch had been mowed and relined and apart from moving a dead rat from just outside the centre circle perfect.
Hadcroft Rovers changed tactics for this match having drawn with Halesowen Members on the same pitch a few weeks earlier in the cup and within 35 seconds could have taken the lead except for a good defensive stop. After that Halesowen Members took the next 10 minutes until a brilliant through ball from play maker David Chambers put Captain and Man of the Match Chris Smith through on the Halesowen Defence Smithy took this chance and having beaten one defender was confronted by Halesowen’s keeper but a cool head saw Smithy drive it past the keeper into the bottom right hand corner of the net on 14 minutes 0 – 1. Hadcroft now started to create chances and in one attack Smithy had the ball saved German (Julian Probyn) following up hit it hard for the ball to hit the crossbar and bounce back to the feet of DJ (David Smith)who picked up the rebound only to hit it wide. Halesowen had few chances but when they did Keeper Scott Newman and the back four led by Lee Turner were ready to pounce.
HALF TIME 0 – 1
The second half started and both teams had chances but it was not until tactical substitutes were made by Hadcroft on 62 minutes that things changed, Luke Smith replaced Chris Reade and Sean Gray replaced Sarvesh Tah who at 50 had run himself into the ground with a brilliant performance. Hadcroft had a corner on the left taken by German who whipped in a perfect ball Lee Turner flicked it towards goal and 1 minute 15 seconds after coming on as a sub Luke Smith scored his first goal for Hadcroft Rovers FC 0 – 2. But super sub had not finished and just over 1 minute later picked up a ball from the Halesowen defence and struck it with the outside of his right foot giving the keeper no chance 0 – 3. At this point it was all Hadcroft with wave after wave of attacks from midfield, left and right wing and when a through ball saw DJ run around the Halesowen defence and deliver a perfect cross to be met by Chris Smith on the far post with a perfect connection 0 – 4. At this point Hadcroft started to lose their shape and the tracking back stopped and allowed Halesowen back into the game but the total irony was that having lost 3 match balls Hadcroft had to give the Halesowen their last seasons match ball so the game could continue and it was with this that Halesowen scored on 80 and 84 minutes. Mark Winter replaced injured Ian Whittaker on 88 minutes.
FULL TIME 2 – 4
Next match Sunday 16th October away to Sedgley White Lion in the league at the Quarry Club KO 10.30am.
