Kingstonian win 9-8 on penalties
Tolfrey Saves The K’s
To give you a sense of how forgotten this game was in the collective K's consciousness (to visualise that hive mind, think of The Borg but red and white and shaped like a football rather than a cybernetic cube), midway through this Surrey Senior Cup 2nd round tie Oxford K tweeted his fury that we were not losing because he thought it was in fact an Alan Turvey Trophy quarter-final and wanted a swift exit.
But this was no meaningless Turvey trial – no, Sutton United play in the SSC and if you want to get to Gander Green Lane to throw toilet roll on their astroturf, then you need to win games like this on a cold November night. The record books will show that 35 dead souls attended this game. Those who were there will never forget the porcelain mugs, Walton getting a pen in the second half and NO ONE noticing until Tolfrey saved it, the Pointless Quiz machine in the “not-the-club-bar”, the hot chocolate and the presence behind the goal of a troublemaking Chris Murray.
Walton Casuals, confusingly, play at Merstham. Liam Collins is one of their bosses and still plays right-back. They are pretty good and defended well against Ricky “Hero of Lewes” Sappleton. The “home side” took the lead through Jack Sammoutis in the 23rd minute. I couldn't see what happened, despite the installation of a new step behind the goal.
Sappleton nearly got the equaliser early in the second-half when he bundle the ball two yards over the line but the officials' view was blocked by a prostrate Max Hustwick.
On 55 minutes, the Sappattack resumed and this time he fired low through a defender's legs on the line to make it 1-1.
At this stage, I had to shout to Rob Wooldridge in the main stand to ask whether this match would go to extra-time but answer came there none (ed: I was merely a hundred yards away, no excuses really for not answering). So I asked the linesman instead, at which point Tommy told the linesman off for talking during the game. The important thing is that we discovered this game went straight to pens, with no extra-time means 1) drama and 2) getting home before midnight.
Amidst all this discussion we all managed to miss that Merstham had actually already been awarded a penalty for a handball somewhere in the box. Tolfrey saved it so we needn't have shifted our attention from Woah Nana Bins.
Tommy then brought on three youngsters who played well: Filippo Di Bonito, Josh Johnson and Bruno Morais. And all three ultimately scored their penalties in the shoot-out.
See below this report for how the spot-kicks [9-8!] played out – all you need to know is that twice Merstham had the chance to win from a kick and twice the K's fans behind the goal put them off by performing a combination of shuttle runs and star jumps in their eye-line. [Others may give the credit to Rob Tolfrey].
Match report by Taimour Lay.
