Tilehurst YM produced a steady if unspectacular display to defeat Caversham Park Village and progress to the next round of the Berks and Bucks Junior Cup.
In truth, a stodgy, undulating pitch made it difficult to produce free-flowing football and the YM were again slow out of the traps. However, as the game settled down, Tilehurst began to find more and more time on the ball with James Williams and Ben Koslicki in particular enjoying a lot of space down the right hand side. Once again, Tilehurst’s profligacy in front of goal was all too evident when Joe Edwards mis-timed a header when well placed and James Williams sent a speculative left footed effort over the bar.
Tilehurst continued to exert pressure on Caversham’s backline and their dominance finally paid off when a mix up between Park’s centre halves allowed Michael Harvey to nip in and burst through on goal. He went on to calmly slide the ball past the onrushing ‘keeper and into the bottom corner with the minimum of fuss.
At the restart, Tilehurst maintained their territorial advantage. A throw on the right hand side deep in the Caversham half was worked back to Karl Stanley who whipped in a teasing ball to the near post on his full debut for the club. The quality of the delivery meant that Park’s goalkeeper and centre half both came to meet the ball, the defender got their first and inadvertently diverted the ball into the back of the net under pressure from Edwards. A miss from close range by the luckless Dave Gill rounded off the half.
Tilehurst were well worth their two goal lead at half time and should have extended that lead further early in the second half but Harvey’s goalbound effort was headed off the line with the keeper left stranded. On the hour mark, signs of complacency were beginning to show in the Tilehurst ranks and a speculative ball into the box was headed up in the air, and despite stand-in goalkeeper Bobby Buck’s shout, the ball was not dealt with as it dropped and was slid into an empty net.
Suddenly, from a position of complete dominance, YM were made to sweat again. After Harvey’s cheeky attempt to claim his second goal after punching it into the back of the net, Buck atoned for his earlier error with a fantastic save low down at his near post as Caversham saw their best chance of the match go begging.
YM put the match beyond any doubt late on when Mark Harding’s ball into a crowded penalty area was dummied by Edwards following Ryan Maslen’s call, Maslen went on to calmly guide the ball into the back of the net from 8 yards out.
YM saw the game out with consummate ease and will now face North Ascot in the next round. Not a game to live long in the memory, but we got the job done and will look to build some momentum from here with big games coming up.
Special mention to Simon Swain for running the line for us, and to Jake for washing the kit.
