Sunderland Sunday League
Thursday 2 April 2009
RCA The Barnes completed a league double over SRM Hylton Castle with a 3-2 victory at the Billy Hardy Centre, Castletown.
RCA started slowly again and found themselves behind after 15 minutes when SRM scored a very unsportsmanlike goal after RCA keeper had kept out an effort that was followed up by a SRM forward resulting in both of them and an RCA defender ending up in a heap on the goal line, the ball having been hooked clear by the said defender. As the ball was half cleared the SRM forward then impeded keeper Errington from getting to his feet by deliberately kneeling on him, resulting in the keeper being injured and despite Errington lying on the ground, obviously in some pain, SRM proceded to regain possession and shoot home from 30 yards. The referee had followed the ball out and had apparently not seen the blatant impedement and so had to award the goal - not particularly sportsmanlike behaviour from SRM, but RCA had to accept it and carry on.
This incident only served to galvanise RCA and they then dominated the remainder of the half, having numerous half-decent opportunities to equalise, but could not quite find the killer ball.
H-T 1 - 0 to SRM
RCA came out of blocks at the start of the second half and equalised more or less from the kick off when Andy Place received the ball on the edge of the box to the right of goal, dropped a shoulder, lost his man and rifled a shot across the keeper into the far left corner: game on. Minutes later the same player found himself free in a similar position and repeated the dose with a similar finish, only this time high into the same corner. RCA were now well on top with playmaker McLeod dictating things from the centre of midfield and it was he who played a perfect ball down the inside right channel in the 70th minute to release leading scorer Willie Crew, who again shot across the keeper into the far left corner, a great finish from a great ball.
RCA then made three quickfire substitutions with Phill Hall (still not back to full fitness and needing to be treated gently), Mark McLeod (played on Tuesday night for RCA firsts) and Gary Tyzack making way for Martin Mowbray (just back in the fold after season long knee problems), Matty Stevens and the manager's youngest son Chris Hartley.
SRM, needing points for premiership survival, pushed on, but without really troubling the RCA defence, superbly marshalled by skipper Curtis alongside the ever dependable Surtees and the find of the season in young Liam Dunn - what a player he is going to be. However in the deepening gloom a speculative half hit shot from the edge of the box somehow found its way through and caught out everybody, including the keeper, who either could not see in the darkness or thought it was going wide, but it crept into the net to give a nervous last two mins, but RCA held out to record another fine comeback victory and keep themselves on course for their best league finish since the mid-90s.