Taunton & District League
Seward Cup 1st Round
Wednesday 4th October 2023
Kick Off 20.00 Actual 20.02
Dulverton Town 3 Wellington Road Dons 3, (1-3 pens) attendance 13
6’ 0-1
45’ + 1, 1-1
59’ 2-1
60’ 2-2
65’ 2-3
82’ 3-3
@ Richard Huish College, 3G Pitch
South Road
Taunton
TA1 3DZ
No Admission or Programme.
The 3G pitch here at Richard Huish College has recently opened and is used for midweek cup matches in the Taunton & District League. The car park, and the pitch itself, are not accessible from the college entrance on South Road, but via Bishop Fox Drive, which itself is a right turn off Calway Road at the rear of the building. It is a typical cage set up, with spectator viewing along three quarters of one side and there are a couple of dugouts opposite. There are a number of different coloured lines marked out for multiple sports and annoyingly it has a dividing wire along the halfway line, although it only got hit with the ball once in each half.
The match was 6th in Division 2 versus 1st in Division 1. It was a much closer contest than I was expecting and there were chances galore at both ends. Wellington led early, but just couldn’t add to it and in stoppage time at the end of the first half Dulverton drew level. Just before the hour mark Dulverton went ahead, when a mix up between ‘keeper and defender saw a misjudged header leave the striker to roll the ball into an empty net. The lead lasted just seconds though, as Wellington levelled straight from the kick off, when a through ball was poked past the ‘keeper into the bottom corner and five minutes later it was 2-3, when a cracking 25 yarder was curled into the top corner, despite the ‘keeper getting a hand to it. Dulverton made it 3-3 with eight minutes left, following in from close range, after the ‘keeper had fumbled a header from a diagonal free kick into the box.
So, it was straight to penalties. Wellington went first. They scored the first two, but had their third saved. Dulverton managed to miss their first two (wide and post) but scored their third. Wellington then made it 3-1 and when Dulverton hit the crossbar with their next kick and that was it. Oddly, the F.A. Full Time website shows the penalty shootout score as 3-4. At least we got finished in time to beat the 10pm curfew on the floodlights, which apparently would have turned off automatically.
No problem with the journey down to Somerset, via M3, A303 and A358. SatNav brought me back via M5 and M4 (28 miles further!), despite two closures on the M5 and the M4/M25 interchange having no access southbound, this time diverting via the previous junction.
