Match Report

Lowestoft Town v St Ives Town

Southern League Challenge Cup – Preliminary Round  10-09-19

A well taken early goal from debutant striker Matt Foy settled this cup tie but the equally important statistic from the game was Ives first clean sheet of the season and it was not easily come by as they came under heavy pressure almost throughout from the Trawlerboys who were keen to match their run to the semi-finals of this competition last season.

Recent acquisition from Cambridge City Foy was not the only Ives debutant on the warm evening on the East coast as ex Coventry City and Northampton Town defender Aaron Phillips also made his first start at right back as manager Ricky Marheineke shuffled his squad making eight changes to the starting eleven from Saturday’s FA victory.

The visitors were quickly out of the traps and could have gone in front even before Foy’s early goal as Robbie Parker changed down an attempted clearance by Adam Tann and forced his way to the bye line before picking out Foy with his pull back, it took an excellent recovery block by Miguel Lopez to prevent the Ives striker opening his account in second minute.

However Foy was not to be denied for long as only two minutes later he picked up a ball out of defence by Ollie Snaith on the right hand side and cut inside between Jack Wilkinson and Ross Jarvis before drawing keeper Luis Tibbles to him and the cleverly slotting the ball between the exposed custodian and his near post.

Falling behind seemed to spark the hosts into action and they pressed forward with purpose to win the first of many corners on the evening only four minutes later. Louis McIntosh delivered it to the near post when Malachi Linton rose above the crowd to power in a header that Martin Conway did well to block at point blank range. The loose ball was quickly scrambled away by the alert Jarvis Wilson.

Ty Ward conceded a free kick in a dangerous position as he sent the speedy Jacek Zielonka sprawling just outside the box in 12^th minute as the tricky winger was tearing at the heart of Ives defence. Zielonka took the resulting free kick himself and curled it around the wall but the effort was gathered by a well positioned Conway.

Ives raids on the Trawlerboys goal were sporadic the best of them coming midway through the half when a Ward free kick into the box was only half cleared and Snaith snatched his shot well over the top with a better balanced Phillips bearing down on the loose ball just outside the box.

But play soon swung back to the other end where Jack Wilkinson managed to time his run to perfection to arrive beyond the back post and get on the end of a deep McIntosh free kick. The full back was perhaps a little unlucky to see his powerful header cannon off the back of Ward and ricochet wide.

Crosses and corners continued to rain into the Ives box but Wilson well backed up by Jeff Woodward and Charlie Johnson remained firm generally winning the headers and knocking away any loose balls to deny the hosts much in the way of clear cut opportunities. The closest the Trwalerboys came to an equaliser before the break was ten minutes before the interval when Tann managed to get on the end of an in-swinging Jack Wilkinson free kick from the right. But he only succeeded in steering his header from ten yards straight into the grateful arms of Conway who held on well.

Ives were forced into a change at the break as Phillips succumbed to a knock to be replaced by Charlie De’ath who went into the centre of defence with Woodward moving across to the right.

Both sides created good opportunities to add to the score in the early stages of the second half. Only thirty seconds after the restart Ezra Forde’s clip into the box from the right was just flicked away from Foy by a stretching Jarvis.

Ives then had a huge escape just sixty seconds later as the clearance from the resulting corner was worked down the left with Zielonka, Jack Wilkinson and Marcus Wilkinson all involved before the latter cut inside and unleashed a fizzing drive from the corner of the box that beat the despairing dive of Conway and crashed into the inside of the post before rebounding across the face of goal at such a fine angle that Linton following up was only able to screw his effort into the side netting.

Having survived that scare the visitors then created a good opportunity to double their lead in 51^st minute as the ever busy Parker robbed Kyle Richardson 30 yards from goal and drove forward before teeing up Andrew Osei-Bonsu just outside the box. The silky Ives striker eyed up his options and curled his right footed effort beyond the grasping fingers of Tibbles but inches the wrong side of his left hand upright.

That proved to be the visitors final opportunity of the evening as the hosts again started to crank up the pressure but now rather than simply delivering the ball into the box where they were getting little joy out of Wilson and his colleague they started to more cleverly work their way through the mass ranks of orange defenders. In 53^rd minute another intricate passing move this time down the right ended with McIntosh setting up Richardson who curled his effort just wide from the edge of the box. The same player thudded an effort into the boards eight minutes later after yet another corner had been knocked down to him inside the box.

As in the first half Ives raids into the Trawlerboys box were rare. The only noteworthy effort in the last half an hour coming in 68^th minute when patient build up play was concluded with Wilson delivering a deep cross from the right which Foy was rising to nod in at the back post only for the ball to skim off the head of Travis Cole and evade the Ives striker.

The chances kept coming at the other end and in 74^th minute a corner was well cleared to Jack Wilkinson fully forty yards from goal but for once the powerful Linton escaped from his marker in the box and he managed to get a clean header onto Wilkinson’s clip back into the danger zone but steered his effort wide from an excellent position.

Two minutes later the sparse home crowd erupted as one when Richardson had a coming together with Ward inside the Ives box when he looked like he was running clear onto a McIntosh through ball but the somewhat eccentric referee Mark Ames quickly waved the incident away but equally strangely failed to book the Lowestoft player if he thought he had dived so his ultimate conclusion must have been an accidental collision!.

The one way traffic continued and with ten minutes to go Conway needed the help of Johnson after the keeper did well to block a rasping drive from 20 yards by McIntosh that bounced off the keeper’s body and back into the mix but Johnson was first to react to scramble the loose ball away.

With the clock ticking down it looked like the hosts were finally going to get the reward of an equaliser as referee Ames decided in favour of the attacking side as the grappling in the area got a little out of hand with bodies landing on the deck as the Trawlerboys umpteenth corner of the night was delivered into the box with two minutes of the ninety remaining. Substitute Dylan Williams was given the task of despatching the spot kick which would almost certainly take the tie to a shoot out. He struck the ball well but Conway guessed right a palmed the effort away to ensure Ives progressed to the next round of the competition.

It was a night where a defender had to take the man of the match accolade and even though he may have been the one at fault for the spot kick Wilson won the honour for an imposing display at the heart of Ives defence. Matt Foy also gleaned votes from the small contingent of Ives fans that had made the long trek to the coast on a Tuesday evening but Wilson just shaded it.  

Final Score : Lowestoft Town  0  St Ives Town  1     

Goals :  Foy 4

Team : Conway, Phillips (De’ath 46), Ward, Jarvis Wilson, Woodward, Johnson, Snaith, Parker (capt), Foy, Osei-Bonsu (Wood 56), Forde (Bailey 78) 

Unused subs : Seymour-Shove, Wakley 

Supporters man of the match : Jarvis Wilson

Attendance : 173

Report by Nigel Howlett. Video by Dave Hook.