FA Trophy Final
Wembley Stadium, London
Admission: £25.00 (including earlier FA Vase Final)
Programme: £5.00
Attendance: 46,111
Following the FA Vase Final, there would then be roughly two hours before the kick off for this game. Quite a long time to kill, not being allowed to leave the stadium, and with no food or drink being officially allowed into the stadium either, the only way for spectators to entertain themselves was to buy food and drink from the unsurprisingly extortionate kiosks. Not that I did, out of principle...
After Wrexham's ambitions were completely transformed following the takeover of the club by Ryan Reynolds and Rob McElhenney, they just missed out on automatic promotion this season, finishing in second place, following 26 wins and ten draws from their 44 league games, and they will be at home in the play-off semi-final next Saturday. Bromley were looking a decent bet to reach the play-offs themselves, but eventually fell away towards the end of the season, finishing in tenth place, following 18 wins and 13 draws from their 44 league games. When the two clubs met in the National League this season, Wrexham won 2-0 at home in November, with the reverse fixture in March ending in a goalless draw. To reach today's final, Wrexham have beaten Gloucester City 5-0 at home, Folkestone Invicta 5-1 at home, Boreham Wood 3-0 at home, Notts County 1-2 away and Stockport County 2-0 at home, while Bromley won 0-1 at Dover Athletic, Aldershot Town 0-2 away, Tonbridge Angels away on penalties, Solihull Moors 3-1 at home and York City 3-1 at home.
In what was quite an even and open game, for a Wembley final, Bromley had the first real chance on 9 minutes, when Harry Foster chipped the ball into the box, but Michael Cheek's header was quite comfortably held by the keeper. On 13 minutes, Wrexham.s Paul Mullin beat the offside trap in running onto a ball over the top down the right wing, he crossed low for Jordan Davies to run onto at the edge of the box, but his low shot was gathered quite comfortably by the keeper. Both sides had other half chances during the first half, but the scoreline remained blank at half time.
This continued into the second half, until Bromley finally broke the deadlock on 63 minutes, when half time substitute Joe Partington pinged a superb throughball from his own half for Corey Whitley to run onto clear of the defence, and he showed good composure, awareness and selflessness in passing to Michael Cheek clear and in a more central position, he struck the ball into virtually an unguarded net. Wrexham pushed hard for an equaliser, having two great chances in added on time. In the 93rd minute, a long thrown in into the box was headed on, and Hyde's close range header was superbly tipped over the bar by Balcombe. And in the 95th minute, the Welshman thought they had equalised, no-one more so than Reynolds and McElhenney, when the ball was whipped in from close to the corner flag for Hyde to stoop to head goalwards, Balcombe parried the ball, but Hyde headed it into the net. But the goal was ruled out for offside, and Bromley saw out the remaining moment to lift the trophy for the first time in their history, having been runners up in 2018. Wrexham still have the more important goal and trophy to aim for, in the play-offs for promotion into the EFL.
No comments:
Post a Comment