Park Athletic Academy travelled to Sproatley in the knock out cup 2nd on a very windy and cool day. The red men faced a tough challenge against division 1 side Sproatley who have been in a fine run of form. Manager Will Hardcastle and his assistant Ciarain Phipps made changes to side and the formation from last weeks late crushing defeat away to Courts AFC. Park reverted to a 4-5-1 to try and deal with the strong winds with returns to the team for Stelloo, Dyce and Heron. The game started scrappy with Park kicking into the wind. The ball spent a lot of time in the air but parks back 4 dealt with everything with ease. Callum OConnor was at the heart of most things good for Park but was perhaps slightly lucky to still be on the pitch after 20 minutes, Sproatleys winger left a heavy tackle on Parks midfield hard man and his retaliation brought a ticking off for both players and pointed towards a strong and physical game. Sproatley snatched the lead on the half hour mark when a shot driven in from 30 yards took a wicked deflection which fell to the forward who could not miss from 10 yards. Questions where raised by the Park players to the forward who looked suspiciously offside but the goal stood and Park trailed 1-0. HT After an equal first half Park now played with the wind and the red men never looked back in their quest to find an equaliser. Siben Sani, Brad Hoad and Louie Green where all introduced. Park pushed from the equaliser from the off and came close a number of times with the Sproatley keeper pulling off a string of saves to keep the scores level. Heron coming closest from a corner his powerful header was heading for the top corner when the keeper pulled out a save diving top corner to turn the ball over the bar. Park pushed on but couldnt find the goal with a number of chances going begging. on the 85th minute the management team pushed everyone forward and on the 87th Keenan Langley turned on 20 yards and drilled a low hard shot to the bottom corner to finally draw the scores level and send the game heading towards extra time. However Park where not in the business of ending it there and they could smell blood, Sporatley found it hard to recover and on 90 mins a long ball forward was taken down on the edge of the area by Langley who fed a ball through to the unmarked Owen who cooly slotted past the keeper to rapturous celebrations from the sidelines. A fantastic never say die performance from everyone, a fully deserved win and the cup run lives on. This was a real Park Athletic performance and one that the Gaffer Andy Leebetter would of been proud of. MOTM: Logan Sivewright
Posted on: Sun, 26 Oct 2014 20:10:36 +0000
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