St Michaels F C started this Cup match with a much depleted squad and only 12 players to pick from, against a GSA team who were unbeaten and top of the League it was always going to be a hard game for St Michaels to win, but what a great performance was to come.
Despite this St Michaels started strong and were the better side in the early exchanges and after only 13 minutes Arran Amer raced on to a pass from Jack Jolly to open the scoring. After 23 minutes Ben Baptiste suffered a hamstring injury and was replaced by JamesMckerrell. A couple of minutes later saw Harry Graham pull off a superb double save to keep St Michaels in front. Five minutes later however he was unable to stop a powerful free kick from just outside the box to see GSA level the score at 1 – 1. With 6 minutes to go till Half Time St Michaels were dealt a massive blow when Arran Amer was seriously injured and had to go to hospital. Ben Baptiste returned to the field although was hobbling for the rest of the game but still making a great effort to help the team. Half Time came with score 1 – 1.
After 8 minutes of the 2nd Half GSA scored from a very disputed Penalty to make the score 2 – 1. St Michaels despite virtually playing with 10 fit players still pressed forward and Danny Baptiste raced on to a long clearance from Harry Graham and made the scores level once again. On 74 minutes Harry Graham made another superb save and then Ryan Nibbs was shown a yellow card which was to prove crucial as 9 minutes later he was shown a 2nd yellow and was duly sent off. The game ended at 2 – 2 and went into extra time with St Michaels now playing with only 9 fit players.
The inevitable started to happen after 4 minutes of extra time when player advantage told and GSA took the lead and then 10 minutes later they scored again. By this time Ben Baptiste had to leave the field for good having done a good job for his team. Towards the end of extra time GSA scored again to make the final score an unjustified 5 – 2.
A brilliant performance by St Michaels against all of the odds including some very biased decisions by the referee. Brilliant performances all round with special mentions for HarryGraham, Jack Jolly, Sam Meade and Jamal Ndakoji, but Man of the Match goes to Dan Regan for a superb display in an unusual role for him at the heart of the defence.
