Robertsbridge Charity Intermediate Cup Final
Recreation Ground, Little Common
Admission including Programme: £3.00
Attendance: 120 (rough head count)
After yesterday's long day out to Dorset, getting home at almost 11pm, and having a full day at work today, I decided to stay local this evening for this cup final tie between two clubs in the East Sussex League.
The Robertsbridge Charity Cups used to be held at The Clappers, the very basic home ground of Robertsbridge United, and there was a certain charm about holding them there with an early evening kick-off. But in recent times, the finals have been played at local senior grounds, and this season they are being played at Southern Combination League Premier Division outfit Little Common's home ground.
Punnetts Town would have been favourites going into this game, playing in a division higher than Rye Town, and finished their season in fourth place in the East Sussex League Premier Division, following 9 wins and three draws from their 18 league games. Rye Town were founded in 2016 as the successor club to former Southern Combination League club Rye United, who withdrew from that league in 2014 due to financial difficulties as well as their ground at The Salts being no longer suitable to host Step 5 football. This season, they have been crowned champions of Division One of the East Sussex League, following 12 wins and a draw from their 16 league games. To reach tonight's final, Punnetts Town won 7-0 at home against Sedlescombe Rangers II before beating Rock-A-Nore on penalties away in the semi-final. Rye triumphed 2-0 against Hawkhurst United, before winning 2-5 away at The Junior Club Tackleway (Sussex Junior Cup winners) in their semi-final.
On a sunny evening, after a minute’s silence was observed for the passing of Alan Apps, the administrator of the Robertsbridge Charity Cups, this was a surprisingly one sided affair, with the first half in particularly being dominated by Rye as Punnetts Town struggled to get going, seeming to rely on a long ball approach which just did not work. And on 5 minutes Rye opened the scoring when the ball was worked across to Milton Mitiadou who had plenty of time and space to strike the ball across the keeper and into the net. On 17 minutes, Rye had a goalbound poke cleared for a corner, and three minutes later, the ball was fizzed in from the right but just evaded a close range tap in on the stretch. But they doubled their lead on 40 minutes, when a corner was headed down for Sammy Foulkes to stab home. Punnetts Town did finish the half fairly strongly, and on 40 minutes a cross from the right bounced agonizingly over the striker's head a few yards out.
But for all Rye's dominance, Punnetts Town were still in the game at half time, and they started the second half on the front foot, presumably after something of a rollicking from their manager in the dressing room. But it was Rye who would score the all important next goal on 53 minutes when Sam Cooper raced onto a ball over the top, running clear of the defence and bearing down on goal, he emphatically struck the ball past the keeper. The result was put beyond all doubt on 62 minutes with a rather strange goal. The ball was looped high over the goal, seeming to head for safety, but the keeper clutched at the ball, spilled it, and Foulkes pounced to slot the ball home from quite a tight angle. To their credit, Punnetts Town did show a bit of fight even now that the game was up, and on 70 minutes, a shot on the run took a slight deflection and the Rye keeper was forced into a good parry. But on 86 minutes, Rye were awarded a penalty when their forward was brought down from behind, and Foulkes stepped up to fire the ball into the bottom left hand corner to seal his hat-trick.
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