DCRD1 Stoke Gabriel 2nd V Loddiswell 17th Jan 2011

[Dave]

Dartmouth Cup Round One

DCRD1 Stoke Gabriel 2nd V Loddiswell 17th Jan 2011

I have watched thousands of football matches in my life, but I don’t think I have even seen one that ended the way this match did. After the final whistle I’m not sure how many red cards the referee showed to players, but it was at least three and possibly more. The scenes at the end only happened because the ref did not give what was a stone wall penalty to Stoke with only 30 seconds left on the clock to play. I'll come back to this at the end of my report.

With Ants game called off we had planned to go over to Homers Heath and watch Buckland’s second team in their cup match. But I got a bit delayed and that meant we would not make the kick-off, so we went to watch Stokes game instead as it’s just up the road from us and we would not have missed the kick-off.

It was a game of very few chances being created and I can’t remember the Loddiswell keeper having to make any meaningful saves the whole match. Lodddiswell started the better of the two teams and were clearly on top for the whole of the first half.

But against the run of play the first real chance fell to a Stoke player. The ball somehow found its way to him in acres of space, he should really have taken the ball further into the box but choose to hit his shot early and while it had the Loddiswell keeper beaten, if sailed just wide of the far post.

Loddiswell continued to have most of the play in the Stoke half, but failed to create any good chances, their approach play was always good, but they were left down by the final pass.

They did score the only goal of the match in the first half and the Stoke Manager should be asking questions why his defence fell asleep and gifted Loddiswell the lead. A Stoke player committed a foul some 3o yards away from goal that he got booked for (the ref was a very card happy ref I’m afraid) the ball was lifted high into the Stoke box and was cleared back outside it by a Stoke defender. The ball fell at the feet of a Loddiswell player who simply lifted the ball over the static Stoke defence who failed to spot Loddiswells number eight ruining in behind them. He got on the end of the ball and slotted it past the Stoke keeper giving him no chance at all of making a save.

Stoke started the second half much better than they did the first one, but without making the better start really tell. They battled well in midfield to always win the ball back and got the ball out wide often, but never got any real telling balls into the Loddiswell box.

They soon found early in the half it was going to be even harder up hill battle to get back into the game when their number two was sent off. He had been booked in the first half for a foul that never warranted a booking and I felt he got cleanly to the ball before the player in his second half challenged, but the ref saw it as a foul. Feeling rather frustrated he swore at the ref and was shown an instant red card. To be honest I don’t know how most of the players controlled themselves enough not to swear at the ref as well. He was sure getting on my nerves a bit and I was only watching the game and I was close to swearing at him

Despite going down to ten men, Stoke continued to keep most of the play in the Loddiswell half, but were always in danger of having a second goal scored against them on the break. Loddiswell should have scored a second goal from one such breakaway and once again the shot was fired just wide of the far post.

With five minutes to go the Stoke manager made a double substitution that nearly paid dividends for him. One of the subs number nine just 3o seconds after coming on, found himself on the penalty spot with the ball landing at his feet. It was is first touch of the ball and looked certain to score, but he lifted the ball over the crossbar.

Two minutes later he was in the book as well, Loddiswell had been awarded a fee kick and took it very quickly, Stokes number nine had only got a few yards away from where the kick was being taken, but stuck his leg up to stop the ball going past him.

With only seconds left on the clock, a Stoke player burst into the Loddiswell box and was clearly brought down, it was one of those why would he go down situations as he was clean through on goal. Ant shouted penalty as did I and everyone else watching the game along with every single Stoke player.

The ref waved play on and as the ball was cleared just out side the box he blew the final whistle. Maybe he did not fancy another half an hour out on the pitch, who knows, but he was soon surrounded by very angry Stoke players. The very large Stoke keeper ran the whole length of the pitch to let the ref know what he thought of him and I swear if some of the Stoke players had not grabbed hold of him to stop him getting in the refs face, we would have punched the refs lights out.

The ref just stood there showing red card after red card to Stoke players and as I said it was hard to tell how many red cards he showed in the end. As he walked past me I told him all that was of his making for failing to give a stone wall penalty.

As Ant and I made our way to his car to come home, I looked around and by that time the ref had left the pitch but was still making his way back to the dressing room. He was still surrounded by many anger players and people from the club. I do hope he managed to leave the ground safely in the end.