A wet and windy Saturday at Donington nearly a unchanged team Ricky Mason coming in for the injured Martin Fox, Steve Holstead returning to the bench and Alex woods having a game for the reserves and Sam Eyett returning to the squad were the only changes. As the rain poured down and the pitch started to cut up Benington took the early initiative scoring after only 10 minutes, some slack defending in the box allowed the Benington forward to head in unmarked in the centre of the goal, Dons were lucky not to be further behind soon after some more sloppy defending and another free chance ,but it was put wide by Benington.after some midfield tussling it was the captain Liam Pitts who broke away in the box and riffled a shot into the bottom far corner of the net on 20 minutes to bring the game level, the tackles were going in thick and fast some of them un savoury but the ref keep his cards in his pocket ,Dons just couldn’t seem to get there passing game going in this match and after this point only troubled the keeper once or twice in the rest of the game, a lot of tussling was done in midfield but to no avail, then on 40 minutes Benington went into the lead another mix up in defence and another un marked player scored, two one to Benington at half time. With a strong team talk at half time and a reshape Donington came out looking for the equaliser at the start of the second half, but with only 10 minutes gone found themselves three one down, a speculative shot from just outside the box and as Jamie Hall dived he had the shot covered it took a wicked bounce and bounced up over him into the back of the net for three one. there was banter going on between the players some of it not very nice though and neither were the tackles they were flying in left right and centre, Dons tried to get a rhythm going but it looked like it was just going to be one of them off days ,some good defending from Lloyd Ogilvie and Wayne Foster(apart from two second half passes that went out for throw ins )kept Benington at bay for a while, but on 65 minutes it was four one, a sweeping move down the left and a lovely ball into the middle which evaded Lloyd and the young keeper was again side footed into a empty net. On 75 minutes more confusion and hesitating in the Dons penalty are and it was five one as the ball came into the box it wasn’t cleared and was promptly headed into the net, this finished Beningtons scoring for the day and inevitably finished the game, there was still two notable moments left though and arguably the goal of the game, firstly Steve Holstead came on to replace Oli Gedney on the left wing, the biggest talking point was the confrontation of three or four players from both sides who had a bit of a flare up and at one moment looked as though the game was going to boil over as tempers got a bit frayed but the players managed to calm things down and the ref still kept his cards in his pocket so at least both teams finished the match with all their players, this didn’t stop the tackles coming in though and there were one or two more flash points towards the end of the game, then on 85 minutes the best goal of the game Jonny Butler with a ball down the right wing for Sam Eyett to run onto as he got near the visitors penalty area he unleashed a unstoppable shot into the top corner of the net to bring a little bit of pride back for Donington,but it was too little too late for Donington and the ref blew his whistle for full time with the scores ending 5-2 to Benington,this was one of them games that I expect all the players will not want a repeat of for some while, with a big game in the lincs junior cup coming up next sat ,let’s start fighting and playing OUR type of football again!!!
