FA Cup Second Qualifying Round Replay
Valley Stadium, Redditch
Admission: £12.00
Programme: £3.00
Attendance: 281
For my latest business trip north visiting customers, I was not expecting to be able to take in a game this evening, and so I booked an overnight stay at a very pleasant hotel near Swadlincote, expecting to unusually have the time to enjoy the facilities more than usual in the evening. But this game was set up on Saturday, following a 1-1 draw in the original tie, and so even though there would be a bit of doubling back on myself after checking in, for a 45 minute drive to the south of Birmingham, Redditch is a ground I had long since wanted to visit, as it seemed to have a fair amount of character about the place.
A goalless draw on Saturday forced this evening's replay, which seemed to give slight underdogs Redditch a real chance of causing a minor upset and progressing to the next round. They have had a fair start to their season in the Setup 4 Southern League Premier Central Division, winning two and drawing three of their seven games so far, and in the previous round of the FA Cuo, they comfortably despatched Boldmere St Michaels 5-0 at home. Peterborough Sports have had a meteoric rise from the Peterborough & District League since promotion in 2013, and finished last season in 14th place in the National League North. They have started this season slowly though, winning two and drawing two of their opening nine league games.
A brief match report from the Redditch Standard can be viewed below.
REDDITCH United exited the FA Cup at the second qualifying round stage following a 3-1 home defeat against Peterborough Sports in a replay.
Despite Reece Flanagan’s first-half penalty drawing the Reds level, Peterborough scored two quickfire goals in the second period at Valley Stadium to end Redditch’s cup run.
That came after the two teams played out a goalless draw at Peterborough’s Lincoln Road ground last weekend.
The visitors took the lead in the replay on nine minutes when Dan Jarvis finished into the right corner of the goal after latching onto a clever flick-on.
However, Redditch equalised on 25 minutes when Callum Rowe drew a foul in the box and Flanagan found the bottom left corner from the resulting penalty kick.
The National League North side reclaimed the lead on 52 minutes when Ben Fowkes saw his shot deflect between the legs of Reds goalkeeper Adam Harrison.
And Peterborough struck again just two minutes later as Fowkes scored his second of the game with a venomous finish which took the game out of the home side’s reach.
Video highlights can be viewed by clicking here
This was an enjoyable evening out, although getting home was a lot more complicated than I had anticipated. After taking a long time to work out how to exit the Kingfisher Shopping Centre car park - even though parking was free, the stay still had to be logged, with parking machines proving exceptionally elusive and the app not particularly user friendly, the satnav then took me on a route through Birmingham, and when I finally did rejoin the motorway network, a familiar jam passing Birmingham on the M6, and then a closure on the M42, sending me on a route along country lanes, meant that it was gone midnight before I finally got back to my hotel.
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