Ten years almost to the day after Messrs Squires, Waugh and Amuaku first discussed putting together a brand new Sunday football team, a second half hat-trick from Harry sent Surbiton Lions to their first ever Cup final. Twice before we've reached this stage of the cup, twice before we've fallen short by the odd goal, coming off the pitch with the nagging feeling that we'd not quite done ourselves justice. This time around, we got the job done and although Reigate can count themselves very unlucky with the penalty awarded for the third goal, we deserved the victory after stepping up a gear in the second half.
The previous league meeting between the two sides saw the Lions cruise to an unexpectedly comfortable 6-2 win. The feeling amongst many in the Lions camp at the time was that the RH Reserves performance was atypical given their recent results, and that maybe they had been slightly weakened by absent players. We were therefore fully expecting them to be much more competitive this time around, especially with the added incentive of a place in a cup final.
It was still the Lions who started the brightest, controlling possession well and building attacks from our back three of Ahmed, Nath and Si. The first twenty minutes was characterised by good build up play from the Lions right up to the edge of the Reigate box where it broke down against a pretty solid defensive wall. We found it nigh on impossible to play through the middle in the last third as Reigate always seemed to get a tackle in or a body in the way of a shot to turn over possession and put us on the defensive.
We didn't help ourselves by holding onto the ball too long at times whilst looking for people in and around the area in non-existent spaces. For all the possession we had in that first period of the opening half, we didn't actually create that many chances. The few ones we got came from long range shots that their keeper looked very unconvincing in dealing with. He barely managed to gather one such shot at the second attempt before Nelson was able to pounce on it. Nelson also had our best chance of the half when he met a cross from Gary on the right with a firm volley that was unfortunately straight at the keeper.
We weren't capitalising on our possession and as the half progressed without the breakthrough coming for us, Reigate grew into the game and started to show some attacking bite to go with their solidity in defence. They made an early sub and their new left back came closest to opening the scoring with a curling shot that pinged off the outside of Paul's right post. Reigate's possession and presence in our half was building up and our back three were now more preoccupied with scrambling hard to nullify Reigate's attacks than starting our own.
The last ten minutes of the half were growing increasingly tense for those watching from the Lions' half of the sidelines and Reigate nearly got the goal their late dominance probably deserved. One of their players found himself in the six yard area with just enough space to turn and shoot, but Paul was out in a flash to block the shot at point blank range.
We were really quite relieved to get to half time all square as the momentum was definitely with Reigate and the break worked to our advantage a lot more than theirs.
The opening exchanges of the second half followed the same pattern as the first, with us having the possession, but unable to break through the Reigate defence. Reigate played mostly on the counter, but didn't really threaten our goal either. A pass to an unmarked Rob inside the box offered a decent shooting chance but his shot on the turn was rushed and wide.
The deadlock was finally broken by two substitutes, Boan and Harry, combining just inside the area. Boan had the first shot, which was blocked almost predictably by a red and black-shirted body and the ball came straight back to him. He had the presence of mind to square it to his right for Harry to have a go: this he did, but he seemed to almost scuff the shot and from the sidelines the bobbling ball didn't appear to have enough on it to even reach the goal, let alone beat the keeper. When the ball not only got to the goal but evaded the keeper's dive, there was a collective split-second "huh?" before the cheers of relief started.
We pressed on to try to increase the advantage and the renewed effort was swiftly rewarded when Nelson chased down a ball down the right and managed to squeeze the ball back from the byline. Harry was again in the right place at the right time in the area and this time he met the ball with a crisp strike that propelled it into the roof of the net. This sparked wild celebrations from the bench (and a classic "Never drop me again!!!" from Harry himself) as we knew that had to be the goal that sealed a place in our first final.
The two goals in five minutes finally spurred Reigate into taking the game to us again and they did start to camp out in our half at that point. Our defence was solid though, despite various second-half changes to the personnel. Mussa put an excellent block in a couple of yards out from goal to deny Regiate a way back into the game and the only half-dangerous moment for us was a long range effort that Paul saw all the way and calmly tipped over the bar.
With Reigate having to press forward so much, they were inevitably leaving gaps in their defence and a counter-attack from one of their corners ended up with Ben running through on goal, only to be tackled by a defender in the area. The opinion of myself and the majority of us looking on, was that it was an excellent challenge with the ball having been won cleanly. The only person whose opinion mattered however, was the ref's and he pointed to the spot straight away. Very harsh on Reigate but there was only ever going to be one person to take the penalty, even if he didn't already own that particular role in the team.
Harry duly stepped up and left the keeper rooted with a firm strike into the net to claim his first Lions hat-trick (and thereby banishing the memory of his last spot-kick which may well still be in low-Earth orbit).
It was a much closer contest than our first encounter with Reigate, but in the end we ran out convincing winners and it's a special moment for not just Harry but Paul as well since he now has his first clean sheet of the season. Also worth mentioning that although he didn't get a goal, Nelson finally has an assist to his name. This kind of highlights the fact that It was a complete team performance, with everyone putting in a fantastic shift to propel us onto the biggest stage of the Lions' existence so far.
The final itself is on Friday 20th April at Banstead Athletic Football ground, full details and location are in the schedule. Our opponents are Chessington Galaxy who are themselves on a hot winning streak so it's going to be quite a match. One last time though, Surbiton Lions: Cup finalists at last!
