Hayes and Yeading Utd 2 Poole Town 3

 

FA Cup Round 2Q

 

27 September 2015

 

Maidenhead Utd moved to their York Road ground in 1871 making it "the oldest senior football ground continuously used by the same club". I would say that it is probably time to clean the toilets and fix the leak. Nomads Hayes and Yeading now also play their football here and judging by the low attendance (185), a return to Hayes is a pressing issue.

At 19th in the National League South to Poole's 6th in the Southern Premier League the gap between H&Y and Poole doesn't seem great but in the past it has proved that the step up to National League level is quite significant. This is how it looked when the game started with H&Y coming at Poole in waves as they looked for an early goal. It wasn't until 15 minutes had gone with Poole hanging on desperately that Poole got out of their own half and scored against the run of play. A corner was cleanly headed into the goal by Walker. H&Y tried to return to their normal game but were clearly put out by the setback and Poole began to get into the game. A break from Poole's half suddenly found Gillespie running onto a bouncing ball and with the keeper and defender hesitating he ran on and placed a perfect lob over the keeper and into the net. A shell shocked H&Y team gamely tried to raise their game but you could see the Dolphin's confidence rise as they fully committed to tackles and challenges to keep the score at 0-2 at half time.

Un unfathomable decision to replace Gillespie with Spetch up front gained the ultimate reward early on as Spetch found himself free twice in the area. He fluffed the first one on one with the keeper but a couple of minutes later a deft first time touch saw the ball go over the diving keeper into the net for 0-3. Watching the match it was still clear that H&Y could come back and so it proved. As the momentum turned again, with Spetch showing limited mobility up front H&Y moved the ball quickly forward again threatening to overwhelm the Dolphins as they had in the first 15 minutes. This time they were rewarded with 2 well taken goals which Hutch couldn't do anything about. With 20 minutes left the game hung in the balance but with Connell replacing Spetch up front Poole coped with the final pressure really well and in the end saw out the time with few further problems

So, the diffrence here is that Poole beat higher opposition rather than just put up a good show before losing. This should give the players a lot of confidence as they seek to impose themselves on the league.