Cheltenham League

Division 2

Thursday 5th September 2019

Kick Off 18.30 Actual 18.25

Leckhampton Rovers 3 Fintan 2, attendance 15

5’ 0-1

13’ 1-1

22’ 1-2

61’ 2-2

74’ 3-2

@ The Folley

University of Gloucestershire

Gardner’s Lane

off Swindon Road

Cheltenham

GL51 9JP

No Admission or Programme.

With both teams and the Referee out warming up on the pitch at 18.10, we thought we might get started a little bit earlier than the scheduled 18.30 start. We did start five minutes early, but the Referee decided to play 2 x 40 minute halves, despite it being a nice sunny night.

These two had both played on Tuesday evening in cup matches, with Leckhampton losing 1-7 at home and Fintan having won 3-1 away, so when the visitors opened the scoring with a superb lob from the corner of the box after just five minutes, it looked like this could be another long night for the hosts. Although they equalised, they were soon trailing again and it was 1-2 at halftime. It was 2-2 just after the hour mark and Leckhampton completed their comeback to go 3-2 up with six minutes left. Two minutes from the end, Fintan had a player sin binned for the remainder of the match, but despite being a man short they pushed for an equaliser and following a long punt into the box they were awarded a penalty, just as the 80 minutes were up. Unfortunately though, it was hit wide of the target and despite the Referee playing six minutes of stoppage time, Leckhampton held on for the win.

As expected, when the match finished at 19.56 there was still plenty of light left and the extra ten minutes would have been no problem to fit in, especially with the fact that there were seven minutes of stoppage time played over the two halves.