FA Youth Cup 1st Round
Priory Lane, Eastbourne
Admission: £3.00
Programme: None
Attendance: 202
Having taken the day off work today, still wanting to take in as many games as possible in this stop-start season, I was sufficiently tempted to pay my first visit of the season to Priory Lane for this Friday night fixture in the FA Youth Cup.
As might be expected of an "Elite" venue, plenty of Covid preparations had been put in place for visitors, starting with a sign just before the turnstiles encouraging visitors to play their part with social distancing. Once inside, a gel dispenser and the NHS QR code were available, with an abundance of signage around the ground, and seating in the stand clearly marked as to what was available for use or not. An added complication of this fixture, under the current circumstances, was that the visitors from Aylesford, in Kent, are based in a Tier 3 area, meaning that no away fans were permitted this evening, and all visitors were asked to confirm who they were supporting on entry to the ground. Unfortunately, no programmes nor team sheets were available this evening.
To reach this stage of the competition, Eastbourne Borough had negotiated three rounds, beating Knaphill 2-1 at home, Kingstonian 4-2 at home and finally Carshalton Athletic 1-3 away. K Sports have had to fight their way right from the opening Preliminary Round, when they beat beat Glebe 5-3 at home, before triumphing against Meridian 3-1 at home, Erith Town 0-1 away, and most recently Uxbridge 2-0 at home. The victors this evening could look forward to a very attractive looking trip to MK Dons in the next round, to be played next Wednesday.
On a cool evening with quite thick mist rolling in during the second half, for the first time in 42 games this season, I witnessed the first taking of the knee by players at kick-off, which was greeted by some booing from a handful of people. As for the game itself, it turned out to be a very even game, with Eastbourne scoring what turned out to be the winning goal in the 42nd minute, when a free kick was whipped in from the right by Ben Overton, and with the ball just above the keeper's reach, and Jacob Minty headed home.
K Sports battled well to try and get something back from the game, but it was the hosts who came closest to scoring again - on 52 minutes, a shot from the edge of the area was parried behind for a corner, from which a driven shot from well outside the area was rifled just over the bar. And on 73 minutes, a defender threw himself in the way of a fierce goalbound shot.
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