CONOR'S BRACE SENDS GREEN IN TO COUNTY TROPHY FINAL

Nottinghamshire FA County Trophy

Semi Final

KEYWORTH UNITED RESERVES 3 NOTTINGHAM FC 0

Admission Free

Programme 50p

Attendance: 74

Another weekend where the wet and stormy weather put pay to a lot of matches in the Midlands area, saw full credit to the Keyworth groundstaff on pulling out all the stops being at the Platt Lane ground from 7.30am to make the heavy pitch perfect for the County Cup Semi Final tie.

Both teams headed in to the game in good form, with the hosts winning their last 3 fixtures whilst the young Nottingham FC side winning their last six, so a close game was being looked forward to.

On arrival, I was greeted by Club Chairman Chris Thompson and grabbed a cuppa before a chat with the 3 match officials. Before getting the teamsheets, I wished both sides well and strolled towards pitchside.

I also met Stickypalms who also writes a superb blog called "The Groundhopper" here is the LINK

The wind was howling down the pitch, but credit to both sides who were trying to play passing football and it was the team in blue that had the first chance of the game after just 12 minutes, when the home keeper was called in to action after a shot from the oppositions number ten.

With the heavy ground, players knew they would have to work for every ball and a nice move on 16 minutes by the homesters saw the ball laid back to THOMAS SISWICK to fire United in to the lead. The visitors seemed abit upset by this and the referee sent one of their players to the sin bin for dissent.

Whilst Nottingham FC were still down to ten players, United used this to their advantage in the 24th minute to double their lead, when CONOR PAULEY latched on to a loose ball to smash in to the top corner of the net to make it 2-0.

After the half time cuppa and the action began straight away, when a visiting player already on a yellow card, was shown a second yellow card when he handled the ball inside the area in the 50th minute, up stepped Conor Pauley but the visiting keeper guessed the same way the penalty was going and pulled out a excellent low save.

Nottingham FC pushed forward but didnt really use the wind to their advantage and didnt test the home keeper and being a man short tired legs began to kick in and so did a bit of frustration, resulting in them picking up several yellow cards in the meantime.

The tie was put out of reach in the 83rd minute, when a corner floated in from the left hand side was met by CONOR PAULEY who guided his header home from around ten yards out to send the greens in to a 3-0 lead.

I felt that Alex Smith the referee had a very good match along with his two Assistant Referees in Gregg Stuart and the young Assistant who's name sadly I cant remember(but he is from Southampton).

I would also like to thank Gregg Stuart for donating £5 of his match fee to the Charity Blog which is for NOTTINGHAM STROKE CLUB, also to Keyworth United FC who have pledged 25p per goal throughout the season, also Nottingham FC donated earlier in the season. The running total at present stands at a superb £645.00.

197 Photos from the tie can be seen on this LINK