Sunderland Sunday League
Humbledon & Plains Farm GI FC 3 RCA The Barnes 2
14 September 2008
RCA The Barnes suffered an undeserved defeat by 3 goals to 2, at the hands of current league champions Humbledon & Plains Farm. The game, played in perfect conditions thankfully, was a closely fought contest with the first half being fairly even apart from one good save from RCA's stand in keeper Lee 'Zico' Austin. The only other chances were half chances which both defences coped with comfotably, until slack play in midfield by RCA resulted in the ball being played out to the Humbledon & Plains forward Gary Shields (an RCA player on Saturdays) who played a perfect ball across the face of goal to present Rob McClean with a free header to give the home side a 1-0 lead. The timing of the goal could not have been worse as half time was blown for straight away.
Worse was to follow within minutes of the restart as a defensive header was deflected to Rob McClean who mishit his attempted volley, which completely fooled the keeper and bobbled into the corner of the net to make it 2-0 to Humbledon & Plains.
RCA heads refused to be bowed though and they got back into the game with a tremendous 25 yard strike from Mark McLeod, which lifted the spirits. Better was to follow as Philip Hall threaded a ball through the inside left channel for Willie Crew to hold off a defender and round the keeper to make it 2-2.
The game was there for the taking now, but it was Humbledon & Plains who came up with the killer third goal with 15 mins left when Joe Holbourn challenged RCA defender Michael Curtis at the far post and both players got to the ball with headers, but the ball then richoched off Holbourn's shoulder and looped over a stranded keeper.
RCA then pressurised the Humbledon & Plains defence for the remaining time but could not get what would have been a deserved equaliser, despite creating a couple of half chances.
All in all a decent contest, which on another day could have been more positive, but congratulations to both sets of players for a sporting match.