Tuesday 22nd September 2020
FA Cup First Qualifying Round
at the Forest Town Arena
AFC Mansfield (1) 3
Ross Duggan 17
Phil Buxton 47
Ben Algar 90
Gainsborough Trinity (0) 0
Attendance: 201
The FA Cup, it's all go innit!?
Stay alert folk, because if you even blink there is a massive chance that you might miss something.
The next three instalments of this years competition all take place over the next month, namely: the Second Qualifying Round falls on Saturday 3rd October, the Third follows ten days later on Tuesday 13th October and the Fourth is scheduled for Saturday 24th October.
The First Round, when the clubs from the bottom two divisions of the Football League join in, is due to be played on Saturday 7th November and the Second on 28th November.
AFC Mansfield went into this game as the last remaining standard bearers for the 'Toolstation' NCEL in this season's FA Cup, having battled gamely past Sherwood Colliery and Cleethorpes Town in the previous two rounds, while Trinity, as a 'Pitching In' Northern Premier League club entered the competition for the first time this term tonight.
On Saturday, the Bulls began their league fixtures with a home defeat against Yorkshire Amateur, who scored the only goal of the game in second half stoppage time, while the Holy Blues made a winning start their campaign with a 2-0 win at the Northolme in front of an impressive crowd of 583 spectators.
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| John and Andy..."To me, to you!" |
For one night only, yours truly stepped in to help out my good friend, the AFC Mansfield chairman: Andy Saunders, who was short on staff numbers and volunteers for this midweek cup tie.
I already have a full-time job in the real-world and a part-time arrangement with a football club elsewhere who tend to keep me busy... so I won't be feeling tempted to dip my big toe back into the murky waters of local non-league football again any time soon. Not that anybody would ever be daft enough to want to employ me anyway.
But I enjoyed being able to do my bit tonight though.
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| In the blue corner Curtis Woodhouse... and in the red corner Matt Chatfield |
Once again, Matt Chatfield's Forest Town based side started yet another cup game from the familiar position of unfancied underdogs, with Curtis Woodhouse's visitors, an ex Football League club from the former capital of England (Oh yes they are and it was! Have a look on Wikipedia if you don't believe me), weighing in on the scales at two heavyweight divisions higher than their hosts.
Woodhouse, who once cost Birmingham City a cool £1million when they signed him from Sheffield United in February 2011, also briefly plied his footballing trade in the Mansfield area, when he made a dozen appearances for the mighty Stags while they were a conference club and the Bulls chairman: Mr Saunders, was still on the board at Field Mill.
It was good to see a fair few supporters from the local Football League team at the Forest Town Arena tonight, out and about to get their football fix, some of who were attending an AFC Mansfield game for the first time ever... and it was nice to hear the positive feedback about the host club from a group of them I was bantering with in the car-park after the game.
Check out the Bulls fixtures HERE if you fancy popping across town again any time soon guys.
And of course, it would be remiss of me not to mention that there are a plethora of other non-league alternatives in the area, who'd be more than grateful for your patronage.
The go to source for local fixture information is Malcolm Storer's ON THE ROAD 2020-21 blog, so now you've got no excuse whatsoever for moping about the house on a Saturday afternoon and moaning that there isn't any football to watch.
Even though Mansfield's final goal was scored in the ninetieth minute, 3-0 was not a result that especially flattered the Bulls.
Effectively, a very determined home side bossed the midfield and suffocated their Northern Premier League guests out of the game. Trinity didn't cover themselves in any sort of glory, but that wasn't purely down to the fact that, in a number of cases, some of their players never really got going on the night, but happened because a superbly organised home side didn't afford their illustrious hosts very much (if any) time and space to assert themselves or gain any momentum to build on.
Having started the game on the front foot, the home side opened the scoring, when Matt Sykes ventured forward, having seen off the attentions of Anthony Greaves and picked out Ross Duggan's angled run with a slide rule pass and the prolific striker threaded a well taken strike past Tom Jackson. The four former Gainsborough players in the Bulls starting eleven will have enjoyed that one. One of that quartet threw down a gauntlet of intent, when he let fly with a curling shot that fizzed inches past the upright.
Trinity threatened the Mansfield goal, but Reco Fyfe and Greaves both had to resort to snatching at half chances under pressure, that Hugo Warhurst in the Mansfield goal dealt with comfortably.
Duggan was proving to be a proper thorn in the visitors posterior, but he could only shoot narrowly wide when he looked odds on to increase the hosts lead.
HT: Bulls 1 v Holy Blues 2
The next goal was always going to be crucial to the way that the second-half shaped up and it came just two minutes after the restart when the visitors struggled to clear their lines and the Bulls captain, Phil Buxton, was on hand the thump the ball into the bottom left hand corner of the visitors net after Josh Wilde's cross had reached him after glancing off of the top of the Trinity defender Matty Dixon's head.
Simon Ainge went close to halving the Bulls advantage, but couldn't quite keep his header on target, but it looked like the Holy Blues had been handed a lifeline, when Matt Wilson was alleged to have fouled Rob Orlando-Young and the referee pointed to the penalty spot. The usually assured sharp-shooter Gregg Smith crashed the resulting spot-kick against the bar and in doing so popped his groin meaning that he would play no further part in the game.
Gainsborough looked like a side who were beaten and heading for a cup exit now, but further misery was still to befall them, when Ben Algar gambled on a combination of Jackson and Lewis Dennison not being decisive enough to get the ball away between them on the edge of the area from Luke Walker's knock forward and nicked the ball past them before running on to roll the ball into the wide open space between the goalposts.
There was still chance for Walker to almost add a fourth for the Bulls, but after swapping the ball between his feet and letting fly, Jackson did well to deny the Bulls second half substitute (who is sponsored this season by a bloke called Rob Waite, whoever he is!
FT: AFC Mansfield 3 v Gainsborough Trinity 0
The draw for the next round of the cup will be made on Friday... and then the very next day both of these sides have away games in the league, with Trinity scheduled to head 'oop north to Warrington, while the Bulls face a tricky fixture at Muglet Lane against those lovable rogues Maltby Main.
