EvoStik Northern Premier League (South)
at the Central Ground, Coles Lane, Sutton Coldfield
Romulus FC (0) 1
Romario Martin 72
Frickley Athletic (0) 2
Tyler Walton 55, Tom Dugdale 78
Admission £8. Programme £2. Attendance 100
THE66POW Flickr photo group from this game: Click here
In 2003–04 they were champions of the MFC and as a consequence stepped up to the Midland Football Alliance, from where they won promotion as runners up at the end of the 2006-07 season into the Southern League Division One Midlands.
Having started life at Penns Lane in Sutton Coldfield, the club have also been based at the Vale Stadium, in Castle Vale, just down the road from this desirable corner of the West Midlands,
which I also recall visiting when Paget Rangers had a spell of playing there too.
Romulus now share a ground with Sutton Coldfield Town FC.
Which is where we found them this afternoon... eventually!
As if trying to get anywhere in a sideways direction across this country isn't enough of a ball-ache already, without having an extraordinary amount of extra traffic to contend with.
Though one must remember, that but for the grace of God, we may well have been majorly inconvenienced time-wise, but should spare a thought for the poor souls who were involved in the accident.
here is always somebody worse off than yourself.
His pleasant and cheery disposition was obviously a consequence of his good fortune, whereby he had been stuck in a confined space, with both myself and the 'Navigator' for several hours.
I take my hat off to you my good (and indisputably bonkers) man.
The Frickley manager: Spencer Fearn, has been behaving like a wrong 'un recently, and subsequently he was serving a touchline ban this afternoon and had to watch the game from the naughty step' at the back of the stand; from where he had a panoramic view of his side taking all three points against the NPL South's bottom side Romulus, who are in the worrying position of having played more games than the seven teams directly above them in the table. This win, combined with Alvechurch losing, saw Frickley climb back up to third in the table.
Romulus are a fairly robust and physical side, but that said, today's visitors have got a few scrappers among their ranks too... and though the referee: Richard Watson did well from the outset, as the game progressed he seemed to become flustered and started to make some strange decisions... at least both sides suffered equally from his lapses, while the official had the misfortune of having an assessor present to oversee his, at times, somewhat less than satisfactory handling of the game.
'Don't knock it until you've tried it' and all that... and we all have off days at work, but anybody who was watching this game, regardless of whether they were favouring either team or not, will know exactly where I'm coming from as regards all of the above.
Nicky Darker caught Romario Martin with an uncharacteristic 'ever so slightly' late challenge, but Jamel Ible got onto the end of Kris Taylor's free kick and was fouled while making a clearance.
The gauntlet for a robust competition had evidently been thrown down and accepted manfully by both sides.
The frequently busy Liversidge and Walton were causing no end of problems for 'the Roms' defence and when they combined to feed the ball into Allott, his flick set up Hazel with a great opportunity to open the scoring, but he fizzed the ball narrowly high and wide.
A flag kick from Alger found it's way out to Liversidge, whose shot was blocked, but McGinley was first to the loose ball and chipped it towards Allott, whose glancing header dropped just wide of the upright.
Romulus threatened briefly, but Teddy Bloor moved swiftly to head clear from Taylor's corner, which was a decent trick to perform with the home side's beanpole sized Stephen Palmer cadging a piggy back on the visitors number two's shoulders.
A short throw in from Darker picked out McGinley, who crossed into the visitors six yard box from out on the right to Walton, who cushioned a header back across the face of goal towards Ible, but he nodded it a fraction over the bar.
HT: 0-0 to Frickley!
The first real opportunity of the second half fell to Darker, who saw his long range strike take a deflection and fly wide of the right hand post.
From the resulting corner, Alger's in-swinging strike was met by Ible, who flicked a header towards Burns who was once again denied by Spink who pushed the yet another goal bound effort away from the underside of his crossbar.
McGinley made himself some space out on the right and put in a cross that the home defence only half cleared as far as Hazel, but his shot was off target.
There is always the worry when you're the team in the ascendancy, but not adding the finishing touch to the numerous chances that you've been creating, that you are leaving yourself vulnerable to getting put on your backside, by an against the run of play sucker punch from a counter attack.
But when Zak Lilly broke down the left wing and put Jake Turner under pressure with a cross that moved about all over the place, he collected the ball in a manner that made it looked like a routine catch and quickly released the ball to Liversidge who worked his way all the way along the left hand side of the pitch, before launching cross/shot/conversion into the wild blue yonder.
I'm told that the elderly couple who live at 122 Coles Lane in Sutton Coldfield, are sending the repair bill for their damaged satellite dish to Mr S Liversedge, when the post office opens on Monday morning.
Finally, the deadlock was broken ten minutes after the restart, when Walton planted a perfectly weighted, and placed, shot past Spink from the edge of 'the Roms' area after McGinley had teed the ball up for him.
Walton almost doubled his (and Frickley's) quota shortly afterwards, but he put his speculative effort over the bar.
Liversidge threaded a pass through the left channel for Hazel to run on to, but having left his static marker in his wake, he could only pull the ball back into the side netting.Hazel threatened again from Elgar's forward knock and once again, his strike was only a matter of inches the wrong side of the upright.
A Taylor free kick from thirty yards out, was thumped straight at the Frickley defensive wall, and Marcus Jackson scampered after the the loose ball and swung it back across the face of Turner's goal, from where Palmer was well placed, but planted his header over the bar.
Elgar's curling free kick was on target, but Taylor got his head to it and turned the ball wide of the post.
Dugdale went close with an angled shot across the face of the home sides goal, that rolled fractionally wide of the right hand upright.
And as the visitors continued to look well in control... Romulus scored.
It was a well created and well taken goal too.
Callum Coyle moved forward inside the Frickley half and caressed the ball into the path of Jordan Francis out on the right, whose slide-rule pass into the visitors area was drilled past Turner from twelve yards out by Romario Martin.
Almost immediately after the Romulus goal, Nicky Darker spotted Walton making a run into the area and found him with a measured long pass, and as Walton tried to turn on goal, he went to ground under a clumsy challenge by Callum Williams.
So up stepped Hazel to take the resulting penalty, which he sent virtually straight down the middle, with nowhere near enough power to beat Spink who dropped to the ground and comfortably held onto the ball.
Surely, having had the bulk of the possession and attacking play, the Yorkshire side weren't on the verge of turning three points into one... or even worse.
Romulus were starting to find inspiration from their equaliser and were now taking more risks going forward, but the visitors rearguard were in no mood for buggering about.
Burns played a long ball to McGinley, whose touch found it's way through to Walton and his cross took a deflection into the path of Dugdale, who picked his spot and buried it into the back of the net past Spink.
Romulus were finished now and only a great one handed reflex save from Spink, who'd played well all afternoon, kept out McGinley, who'd picked up a pass from Walton, dropped his shoulder and wrong-footed his marker before getting his shot away from just inside the area.
In the closing exchanges, both sides had just cause to both berate and laugh at the match referee in equal measure, but regardless of his 'rom-com' sideshow, Frickley held onto their valuable win and the better side claimed the spoils.
FT: Romulus FC 1 v Frickley Athletic 2
Hopefully Gav Allott won't be sidelined for too long and he's back in Frickley side soon... and taking the penalties.
Romulus face Belper Town at home on Saturday, while Frickley make the short trip to Swallownest on Tuesday night for a Sheffield & Hallamshire Senior County Cup tie, before Peterborough Sports head to South Elmsall for a league game next Saturday.
