St Michaels F C 4 Crayford Athletic 3 Played on 23rd February 2014
St Michaels were playing their 1st game in 9 weeks against Crayford Athletic with a place waiting in the last 8 of the Betts Cup. Injuries and suspensions meant that they started the game with only 11 players which included the Manager Scott Munday who was to play his first 90 minutes in 8 years.
ST Michaels started brightly playing into a fierce wind and opened the scoring in the 20th minute when Danny Baptiste scored from close range following a run and cross from Adam Fahy. The rest of the first half belonged to Crayford with the wind providing great assistance as they scored 3 goals in 10 minutes and went in at Half Time with a 3 – 1 lead.
The score remained at 1 – 3 until the 74th minute when a corner from Danny Baptiste was fiercely headed in by Dan Tarrant to reduce the lead. With 5 minutes to do a curling free kick from Scott Munday was superbly tipped over the bar by the Crayford keeper but a minute later a long ball from Billy Porter saw Adam Fahy drive into the box and calmly score to make the score 3 – 3. This was not to be the final goal and in injury time the St Michaels keeper Harry Graham launched a long ball down the middle and the Crayford defender saw his attempted headed clearance from the edge of their penalty area cannon into the post and over the line to make the final score 4 – 3 to St Michaels.
A good fighting performance from St Michaels coming back from a 2 goal deficit at half time to win and secure their place in the last 8 of the cup. Plaudits to the whole team who played well throughout but the Man of the Match goes to Harry Graham with superb handling, some great saves as well provided the ball for the own goal winner.
