At the fourth time of asking we were finally able to entertain Woodchurch in the third round of the Kent Junior Cup and it was certainly worth the wait.
On a very heavy Woodside pitch the early exchanges were fairly even, with neither side retaining possession very well. After about 20 minutes their centre forward was given the time to turn and hit an unstoppable shot, which Lee was only able to watch as it curled into the top corner of the net. 10 minutes later Pembury were dealt a blow when Ross Taylor was forced to come off with a nasty cut across the top of his foot. Pembury continued to work hard, but with only rare glimpses of the passing game the team have been encouraged to play this season. We then forced a couple of corners in quick succession and it was from the second of these that a Rob Cornish corner was met with a diving header from Mark Wyles, which flew past their keeper and defenders on the line. Unfortunately poor defending from the re-start resulted in parity only being retained for a matter of seconds. For what was not going to be the last time during the afternoon, Pembury showed their resilience and right on half-time Ben Brooker finished a fine solo run with a calm finish, after his initial pass to a waiting team-mate was blocked.
A couple of positional changes were made at half-time and the management team were confident that we could finish 2006 off with a positive result and entrance into the county wide stage of the competition. However the defending during the next 25 minutes could only at best be described as naïve. Two of the three goals they scored in this period were as a result of us not tracking the runs made by the opposition forwards. We would have been further behind but for some fine shot stopping from Lee, who is proving to be a very useful acquisition for the team. At this point we went to a 4-3-3 formation, which was then altered to a 3-4-3 formation with 10 minutes remaining. A speculative cross-shot from Lewis "The Catalyst" Drury (as he wanted to be called after the game) was theatrically parried into his own net by their keeper. To be honest this appeared to only be a consolation, but the call went up that if we could nick another goal quickly, the last few minutes would be very nervous for them. This revival was very nearly short lived, but for a headed goal-line clearance from Steve Waterman. With the 90 minutes almost up a quick counter-attack resulted in the ball being squared to an unmarked Matt Rice-Tucker at the far post and showing great composure he calmly controlled the ball, before drilling it home. The crowd could now sense that this could be a comeback greater than Liverpool's 2005 Champions League final comeback and so it was to prove as with the last seconds of injury time ticking by, Ben Brooker was found unmarked at the far post and showed the same calmness as Matt to send the game into injury time. The younger players were ecstatic, however the senior players' celebrations were more muted, with the thought of a further 30 minutes play.
Extra-time started with Pembury very much in the ascendancy and within a couple of minutes we went ahead for the first time. A long Ali Turner throw was flicked on by the excellent Mark Wyles. Left-back Rob Cornish ghosted into the six yard box to volley the ball home.
A few minutes later we increased this lead, when a bizarre own goal was scored from 35 yards out. The match was now being played entirely in the Woodchurch half, leaving Lee to have a well earned rest in our goal.. By this time crowd favourite Lewis "The Catalyst" Drury sent one shot flashing past the post and another high and wide. An injury to Tom Bowyer early in the second period of extra-time resulted in more positional changes. Not to be out-done by his defensive colleague Rob, Tom showed no ill-effects of his injury to sprint to another excellent corner and bury the header into the roof of the net. With a three goal lead Pembury were playing with confidence, however a mis-controlled pass led to Woodchurch reducing the arrears with 7 minutes left to play. On any other day this wouldn't have been seen as a problem, but today was a day when anything was happening. Woodchurch forced a couple of corners, but these were easily dealt with. With the match almost over it was left for Ben to have the final say by completing his hat-trick.
With Putlands Reserves waiting for us in the last 16, we have to be confident that we can reach the quarter finals, which would be an excellent achievement. Finally an excellent day was completed when we were advised that our Tunbridge Wells Cup opponents Cranbrook had pulled out of the competition. Secretary Bill Baker was told that it was due to fixture congestion, however it could be that they had spies at today's game and didn't fancy their chances!
Team:
L.Thompson
L.Drury
T.Bowyer
G.Knight
R.Cornish
M.Rice-Tucker
L.Gunning
A.Turner
R.Taylor
B.Brooker
M.Wyles
Subs:
R.Taylor (for R.Taylor)