Frickley Athletic v Worksop Town - FA Cup 1st Qualifying Round Replay

Wednesday 16th September. FA Cup 1st Qualifying Round Replay.
Westfield Lane, South Elmsall

Frickley Athletic (1) 2 (Davies 18, Morris 64)
Worksop Town (0) 1 (Anson 90)

Admission £8. Programme £1.50. Attendance 228
Note Westfield Lane is officially called the 'Tech 5 Stadium' these days.

But for a stoppage time save at full stretch from the Frickley keeper Ben Simpson from a Ben Tomlinson effort, this tie would have gone into extra time.
Over the balance of 90 plus minutes a 2-2 scoreline would've barely been an accurate reflection of the game though.
In fact the 2-1 margin of victory to the home side was flattering to Worksop on tonight's performance, which save for a late flurry in the last five minutes (which still included two last ditch saves from the Tigers keeper Jon Kennedy at the other end) was hugely disappointing to watch.
The magic of the FA Cup did a disappearing trick for the visitors tonight in South Elmsall, along with the prize money for reaching the next stage of the competition, which would've come in very useful to help with the financial burden of having to play their 'home' games in exile 35 miles from the town of Worksop itself for the indefinite future, for reasons I have previously covered in depth elsewhere.

Trailing just one nil at the break (though it could've been a lot worse), Worksop started the second half unchanged, but by the hour mark (well, much sooner actually) it had become blatantly obvious that option simply wasn't working. So Pete Rinkcavage, the Tigers boss, had a mass overhaul and made a triple substitution, throwing Danny Bacon, Ben Tomlinson and Chris Adam into the fray in place of Kev Sanasy, Matt Glass and Andy White. Worksop had created several good chances, but their finishing, quite frankly, had been woeful.
But take nothing away from Frickley they were well in the ascendancy, wanted it more and were in front on merit.Worksop's 'Plan B' last throw of the dice lasted less than five minutes when Lee Morris fired the home side 2-0 ahead on 64 minutes .. the result was fairly academic by then.

Danny Anson scored a late consolation goal (90 minutes plus) after connecting with an Alex Callery free kick, but rather than celebrate his strike he grabbed the ball from the net and ran back down the pitch with it in an effort to get the game restarted promptly - good to see somebody had realised the urgency of the situation - because a few others out on that pitch tonight didn't look too concerned about the outcome this tie and had seemingly given up ages ago. Callery incidentally, had just been yellow carded for taking the free kick too early, twice!

Match report from the official Worksop Town website here:
http://www.worksoptownfc.co.uk/news/details.php?news_id=384

Match report from the official Frickley Athletic website here:
http://www.frickleyathleticfc.co.uk/newsdetails.php?news_id=2180

Picture above, opposite the grand old main stand at Westfield Road stands a slightly less imposing structure, beyond that is the landscaped and redeveloped old 'spoil tip'/'slag heap' from the now defunct Frickley Colliery, the mounds and contours of which are based on 'The 7 hills of Rome'. I asked the octogenarian local who was telling me this if there was a connection between the Romans and South Elmsall to which he replied "Is there buggery, it's just another one of them daft decisions the bloody council have come up with to waste even more money."
So now you know ;-)

Err, in conclusion, the best side won. And both teams got what they deserved, albeit that the single goal cushion isn't a very accurate indicator how just how wide the gulf was between Frickley and Worksop tonight.
The referee and linesman were a bit off the pace it needs to be said, both teams and both sets of fans were unanimous with that verdict. I appreciate that there would be no game without them and theirs is not a job I'd fancy myself. But there are times when their mistakes can make or break a season. On the balance of it I'd say both teams had an equal amount of incorrect decisions that went against them, so fortunately the officials off night didn't influence the result either way in the end.