In this WFA Nationals 60+ Cup match, BayCity Strollers beat Old Bexhillians 2-1 at a very hot Bexhill.

 

The match was played on a 4G pitch at Bexhill College, which seemed a bit thicker than the normal 3G at BayPoint. The pitch was quite long, but narrow, as were the goals.

 

Anyway, BayCity took the lead when Rob placed a perfect through ball to Peter Cadogan to toe poke home from the edge of the box. One nil to us at half time.

 

In the second half Old Bexhillians put together their best move of the match with a good pass to their forward, who managed to score past Lawrence.

 

Old Bexhillians had 3 substitutes and rotated them every couple of minutes. Not sure that helped them too much though.

 

BayCity had most of the play and had a number of shots that were saved relatively comfortably by their keeper, and Old Bexhillians had a player sin binned for two foul tackles ……….. although the player did not realise he had to go off, and the referee subsequently noticed he was still on the pitch!

 

Their goalkeeper seemed a bit erratic in his distribution, and had problems with our high pressing game. Consequently his balls seemed to either go over head height, or out of play.

 

There was no real pressure on the BayCity goal, but neither could we get another goal in normal time, so 10 minutes of extra time…………..

 

Fortunately, Jim managed a toe poke shot which beat the keeper at the near post, and we finished the first half of extra time 2-1 up.

 

In the final 5 minutes we managed to keep possession pretty well, and Old Bexhillians kept giving away niggling fouls. So the end result was a 2-1 victory and on to the next round.

 

Afterwards Old Bexhillians kindly provided sandwiches, cakes and drinks for us.

Chris Le Corney