Match report...
Well, I'm still knackered! The day started at 4:30 a.m. for me, then met the lads at 5:45 at Bramall Lane. The bus turned up 5 minutes late due to not being able to find it's way to the ground, which didn't bode well, then the driver spent a further 15 minutes messing around with his Sat Nav before we finally set off. After finally disposing of the sat nav (as it thought we were in the middle of the desert somewhere) we commenced the near 200 mile first leg of our day.
Arriving at Farnborough in good time (10:15) we were greeted by beautiful sunshine and a 20 pack of Guinness in the changing rooms... top hospitality from Chris and Farnborough, but despite Chris' best efforts to make us drink them before the game, we politely declined and decided to tuck in afterwards ;-)
The Inter Blades new kit deal had all come to fruition on the Friday morning preceding yesterdays game, so the boys all looked very smart in their brand new kits, and spent a good 15 minutes all admiring themselves in it before I finally managed to get them to warm up. Once again massive thanks to Jon Baker and Mick Rooker for making this happen (and Sean for picking it up).
We kicked off close to 11:00 and after a scrappy start I thought we had the better of the early exchanges without really troubling the keeper too much. Farnborough then had a ten minute spell half way through the half where they applied some pressure before we eventually regained our composure and started to get hold of the ball a bit more. On 38 minutes a corner was only half cleared by the Farnborough defence and it eventually fell to top scorer Andy Wood who swivelled on the penalty spot and struck a shot into the bottom corner. Three minutes later and we forced another corner, this time centre back James Tissington rose highest and scored with a superb bullet header into the top corner to give us a 2-0 lead. There was still time for us to score a third but unfortunately it was ruled out for offside in the build up, although despite the young linesmen having a good game (ok, maybe I'm being generous) he got this decision badly wrong, but never mind.
Naturally Farnborough came back at us in the second half and despite the game being fairly even possession wise, our hosts had more of the attacking pressure. Despite this our keeper Kempy didn't have many saves to make until the last 15 minutes when we were hit with the sucker punch of two late goals. Farnborough' s first goal came with about ten minutes remaining, a free kick about 25 yards out was hit beautifully into the top corner giving our Kempy (flipper) no chance really despite the little flap, then with just minutes to go bad marking from a corner let their player head unchallenged from just a few yards into the goal to take the game to penalties. I was absolutely mortified, we were very below par in the second half and our work in the final third wasn't good enough, plus the defending from set pieces which worked to plan suddenly went out of the window. We should have built on the lead but sat back and became complacent (very Blades-like! ).
So penalties it was, knowing that we'd lost our last two penalty shoot outs I was very nervous, but Sean Adamson, Andy Wood, Tom Pratt, James Tissington, Paul Kemp all volunteered which made the job easier. Sean took the first penalty and scored, indeed all of the first 3 were scored by both sides, James then scored the 4th, then Kempy saved Farnborough' s 4th. Whilst Kempy was getting ready to take our 5th the linesman much to our disbelief signalled the referee and decided that our keeper had moved off his line. So Kempy had to go get his gloves and put them on again! Fortunately he saved the retaken penalty, then disposed of his gloves and coolly put away the winning penalty himself. Cue much celebration. .. although I was just relieved (I hate penalty shoot-outs!) .
I've sent a big thankyou to Chris and the Farnborough team for being the perfect hosts, they were a good set of lads, great venue and the referee was good too (although a bit fussy on anything remotely physical). The 20 cans of Guinness on St. Paddy's day that Farnborough bought for us, was a nice touch and I know all the lads really appreciated it.
Afterwards, we managed to locate the "Famous 3 Kings" in West Kensington (next to the tube station), what a top time we had in there! Big screens everywhere you looked with the Football, Rugby and cricket on, the landlord even put the Chelski Vs Blades game on the nearest screen to us at our request (although I wish he hadn't!)... they even had a hot dog stall inside, 3 quid a hot dog though!
Once again i'm dead proud of you all, you're a credit to yourselves and Sheffield United, Scottish team at home next in the semi-finals. ... Wemberlee, wemberlee... . (ok, Boddington Hall, Leeds... but it doesn't have the same effect does it!)
Top day out, decent performance and result, Blades defeat, but lots of laughs.
Inter Blades scorers:
Andy Wood
James Tissington
Penalty scorers: Sean Adamson, Andy Wood, Tom Pratt, James Tissington, Paul Kemp
regards,
Danny B.
Inter Blades
