Teversal 6 v Retford United 2 - Notts Senior Cup R3

Wednesday 7th December 2016
Nottinghamshire FA Senior Cup Third Round
at Teversal Grange Sports & Social Centre,
Carnarvon Street, Teversal
Teversal FC (3) 6
David Cockerill 4, 30 pen, 39
James McCann 71
Joshua Radford 74
Craig Mitchell 82
Retford United (1) 2
Niall Sultan 14
Cameron Dear 66
Admission £5. Programme £1. Attendance 54

Dave Cockerill, who I genuinely thought had hung up his boots and retired from playing football, put 'Tevie' on their way to the fourth round of the county cup, with a hat trick inside a spell of 35 first half minutes, to make light of the gag, that Teversal players turn out with their weight in stones printed on the back of their shirts, Cockerll wears the number 18!
Some of the mannequin challenges that I've seen on social media, where groups of people maintain statuesque poses, as life goes on and the world passes them by, have made for some quite fascinating viewing, but somebody should really have told the Retford United players, that adopting rooting to the spot poses, while fixing a stare somewhere into the middle distance, isn't an appropriate way to be behave on a football field, during a football match in a knockout tournament.

They didn't all indulge in this kind of mullarkey to be fair, but the ones who didn't and were busting a gut for the cause, were too few in number to have had any real influence on the outcome of this match.
The Badgers assistant manager,Michael Bohn, resigned with immediate effect, after such a heartless performance saying that he felt he had taken the players as far as he could.
All the coaching in the world won't win football matches if half of the team take to the field of play in a disinterested frame of mind.

Not that I want to take anything away from Dean Short's Teversal side, because you don't score six times against a team from a higher division, purely because far too many of the opposition team put in a sub standard performance.
The supporters who had travelled through Mansfield from Retford deserved better, but there can be no disputing the fact that Teversal thoroughly warranted their margin of victory... and some of their final balls and finishing was pure class.
Cockerill opened the scoring in the fifth minute, with a well struck angled shot.
Old goalscorers never lose their touch, eh!?
Kurtis Bamford almost added a second goal for the home side; before Retford turned defence into attack, with Cameron Dear picking the ball up in midfield before advancing thirty yards and threading a pass through the 'Tevie' defence to Niall Sultan, who levelled the score with an assured finish in the 14th minute.

Chris Bennett was forced to make a good save from Craig Mitchell, before the game switched ends again and Jack Walters went close to giving the visitors the lead from Dear's right wing cross.
Dear certainly looked pleased to be back at Retford United and was one of the few that emerged with any credit from a night that had started well enough for the Badgers, despite the early set backof Cockerill's goal, but soon went rapidly downhill for Darren Giovannetti's side.
A clumsy challenge by Bennett left the referee, Mark Tinsley, with no alternative but to award a penalty... and he applied this season's new ruling that at the referee's discretion, if he feels that a penalty is punishment enough, he can abstaain from showing the offending player either e yellow or red card.Last season Bennett might not have so fortunate. Cockerill notched his second goal of the night from the spot kick and the home side were back in front. Khyle Sergeant was on a few inches away frommaking it 3-1, when his shot across the face of Bennett's goal narrowly cleared the left hand upright.

But United did that daft mannequin thing again shortly before half time, eventhough they should have alreday sussed out for themselves that if you give Cockerill a yard of space in the goalmouth he will get his shot away and on target... and that is exactly what happened and Teversalhad a two goal cushion to take in at the break.
HT: Tevie 3 v Badgers 1
Macauley Short delivered a telling cross into visitors area as Teversal attacked straight from the restart, that Bennett was forced into punching away from danger and the visitors quickly picked up momentum and put together their best move of the whole game,as Will Wright picked out Liam Wood on the right flank, who fed the ball through to Dear, whose first time knock to Josh Raby was in turn laid out back towards the touchline, to where Ben Wyld launched a deep cross toward Sultan at the back stick, which moved all over in the wind as Josh Turton held onto it just inside his right hand post, with Sultan on hand to utilise any slip by the 'Tevie' keeper.

Sultan was penalised for challenging Turton for the ball... it is in his job description as a forward to attack the ball when it is crossed for him... and an ugly stand off ensued as Turton decided to run the clock down by remonstrating, even though he already had the ball in his hands and had been awarded a free kick.

After carefully considering my position of complete neutrality and taking into account the fact that I have got several really good friends connected to both of these teams, I still feel compelled to write what I am about to, in the spirit of reflecting events at this game (and others) as thoroughly and honestly as possible, whilst trawling through any minuate and sub plots that could have any kind of bearing on the main event.

Retford United have been getting a growing bad reputation for indiscipline on the field of play... and the poor image that such hearsay creates, does affect the way that the Badgers players are treated by match officials and those who oversee meetings to meter out further punishments, based on the comments made about Giovannetti's players on subsequent referee's report forms.

Having seen some of the comments made by the Badgers manager after a few recent defeats, that have bordered on conspiracy theories about hidden agendas against his team, I initially thought that he must be going crackers to be saying such things. 

However, hands up... I stand corrected, because I've witnessed these things with my own eyes now. The disproportionate amount of cautions handed out to Retford United players, compared to their opponents (not just Teversal tonight) for similar transgressions over the course of several recent games bears out the United manager's concerns... and he does actually have a point.

The visitors lost this contest, because Teversal were the better team and scored more goals as a consequence, in a nutshell, they wanted it more.

But there did seem to be spells during the game where the match officials were playing bingo among themselves and using the numbers of the Badgers players they were cautioning to tick off the corresponding boxes on their tickets... and I heard that the referee himself only needed Cameron Dear to step a fraction out of line to claim a full house ;-)

Retford stepped their game up briefly, to good effect. 

Wood was a whisker away from releasing Dear through on goal, Walters rode four challenges as he attacked Teversal's gal through the left channel, before a determined last ditch tackle by Gavin Short averted the danger and in the sixty sixth minute, Dear made a darting run through the Tevie defence and crashed the ball past Turton from a tight angle to pull a goal back for the Badgers.

The only sparkling thing that Retford had to offer tonight.
Mercy McFadden's glitter boots.

Was extra time on the cards?

Err... not effing likely!

Sultan broke into the home side's goal area, straight through the middle, but Jason Gregory put in a no nonsense, firm but fair challenge before clearing his lines.

Then, for whatever reason, the wheels came off for United, every time they cleared the ball away, it was merely going straight back to Teversal for them to launch another attack, passes and tackle were going astray and the game was being frequently broken up, in a stop/start manner by the frequent sound of Mr Tinsley's whistle, as a bit too much needle had started to creep into the later stages of the game.

Any hopes of a comeback that the visiting supporters had harbored, were soon put to bed as Short's team marauded against the premier division opponents in the closing twenty minutes and claimed three more goals, just to be on the safe side.

United should've have cleared their lines in their own area, but stood of and abdicated the responsibility of getting rid of the ball to each other, allowing James McCann to add Tevie's fourth goal with a simple tap in.
Three minutes later Josh Radford unleashed a shot from fifteen yards out, which found the back of the net via the right hand post.

Craig Mitchell thumped an absolute pile driver through a crowded defence from the right hand edge of United's six yard box in the eighty second minute and Teversal's rout and United's misery was complete.

FT: Teversal 6 v Retford United 2

With a new interim chairman, Simon Brammer, installed at Cannon Park this week, in response to Wayne Radford resigning at the weekend, and Retford United lurching perilously ever closer towards the bottom three in the table, I am sure that the club have got more to worry about than crashing out of the county cup.
That said, the level of (non) performance tonight must surely have set the alarm bells ringing and the panic button can't be far away.

Well played Teversal... you can only beat what is in front of you, but your side stuck to their task steadfastly and professionally.
Good luck in the next round.

Both sides face stern tests at the weekend, with Teversal visiting Hallam in the NCEL First Division and Retford United hosting Athersley Rec. at Cannon Park.

Wherever you're going... enjoy your football!