Bexhill United U18 0 v 0 Chichester City U18

Bexhill United won 4-2 on penalties
Friday 17th September 2021, kick-off 19.30
FA Youth Cup 1st Qualifying Round
The Polegrove, Bexhill-on-Sea
Admission: £5.00
Programme: £1.00
Attendance: 172

This evening I decided to take in some Friday night football which, unusually when I am working, meant that this would be my third consecutive evening of football, and also my second visit in three evenings to The Polegrove, and my second consecutive night of watching FA Youth Cup action.

This promised to be a decent game between two clubs who have had impressive starts to their season. Both teams had won all three of their games played so far, Bexhill in the East Division and Chichester City in the West Division of the Southern Combination League U18 league. In the previous round of this competition, Bexhill won 1-4 away at Shoreham, whilst Chichester won 1-2 at Godalming Town.

On another mild evening under clear skies, there was a really good atmosphere around the Polegrove this evening, with plenty of the younger youth teams present and getting involved, and a large attendance provided plenty of encouragement to the home side in particular. And the first half was played at a high tempo, but unfortunately there was little end product, and the closest either team came to breaking the deadlock in the first half came in the 37th minute, when the ball was poked across goal but just evaded a tap in before being cleared.

The second half saw less intensity, but more sights of goal, mostly coming from Bexhill, although right at the end of the 90 minutes, Chichester came so close to grabbing a winner, when a Bexhill player was dispossessed in midfield and the Chichester player sprinted from his own half with only one defender in front of him, but another Bexhill player made up enough ground to haul the Chichester player down, which earnt a yellow card, and the resulting free kick was pumped into the box and headed just wide of the target. The final whistle blew immediately afterwards, and the match went straight to a penalty shoot-out, with no extra time to be played.

With Bexhill stepping up first, both teams scored their first penalties, but after Bexhill scored their second, Chichester's was struck over the bar. Bexhill scored their third, and when Chichester saw theirs saved, all Bexhill needed to do was score their fourth to seal the win. But Chichester were given a glimmer of hope when Bexhill saw their fourth penalty go wide of the target, and Chichester scored theirs. But Bexhill had a second chance to win the tie with their fifth penalty, which they did by slotting it home, to cue wild celebrations amongst the players and officials, and they can now look forward to another home tie in the next round, against Alfold, in a couple of weeks' time.