Match Report

St Ives Town v Godmanchester Rovers  

Huntingdonshire FA Senior Cup – Quarter Final  06-11-18

Manager Ricky Marheineke was pleased to see the Ives losing run finally come to an end, but it took a remarkable comeback with three goals in the last fifteen minutes to end that unenviable run and the hosts still tumbled out of the County Cup at the first hurdle against the gallant Rovers courtesy of their second penalty shootout defeat of the season.

With a number of players missing through injury and others not being risked ahead of an important League fixture at King’s Lynn on Saturday it was a somewhat makeshift Ives side with Lloyd Groves making his seasonal debut in the centre of defence and Tim Trebes putting in a special guest appearance between the sticks. Danny Kelly also found himself in an unfamiliar role in the centre of the park with two strikers both desperate for a goal in Dylan Wilson and George Bailey up front. Step five Rovers on the other hand only made two changes from Saturday’s FA Vase success at Great Yarmouth leaving out two ex Ives men in goalkeeper Niall Conroy and striker Buster Harradine and replacing them with ex Ives Under 18 keeper Sam Palmer and former Histon striker Austen Diaper.

After a fairly even opening period Trebes was the first keeper called into action in thirteenth minute. A quick Rovers break saw the ball fed out to Matty Allan on the left corner of Ives box his powerful strike from 18 yards pulled an excellent diving save out of Trebes as the big keeper hurled himself to his right and held onto the stinging effort. 

Ives came back with an almost instant response as Kelly won a header inside the D nodding the ball down to the feet of Bailey who played a one two with Munashe Sundire which got him clear into the left side of the box. But his left footed effort lacked power allowing Palmer to make a comfortable save.

A couple of Ives fee kicks around the Rovers box failed to bring a clear cut opportunity and it was not until midway through the first half that another chance came along. The first corner of the game went Rovers way but failed to clear the first man allowing Ollie Snaith to break away at pace on the left. His excellent reverse pass picked out Sundire breaking through the centre but with the Rovers defence in disarray the speedy midfield man took a slightly heavy touch allowing Palmer to get off his line swiftly to bravely claim the ball.

By this point Ives were getting on top with the hard work of their midfield quartet and speed and movement of their strikers stretching Rovers, but they could not quite find a way through. The closest they came was in 34^th minute as Sundire and Bailey combined well to put Dylan Wilson into the box. The young strikers left footed effort from 15 yards flashed across the face of Palmer’s goal to safety.

Rovers weathered this period of pressure and with half time approaching they again took the game to their more illustrious opponents. It took an excellent recovery tackle from Jarvis Wilson to prevent another ex Ives man Tom Spark getting a clear run on goal in 37^th minute and the visitors went even closer in the dying seconds of the half. Ives struggled to deal with a long Joe Furness free kick into the box and the ball fell to the feet of Diaper his snap shot from 15 yards brought an incredible reaction save out of Trebes as the keeper flung himself acrobatically to his left to parry the effort. The loose ball was turned home in the resulting melee but fortunately for the hosts the flag was already up for offside.

Ives were perhaps a little fortunate to survive that scare seconds before the break but they had no such luck in the second period as they fell behind only 47 seconds after the restart. For the second time in successive games they gave away possession from their own kick off and got punished. The ball being fed into the feet of Allan 25 yards from goal the Rovers midfielder found himself in space and curled peach of an effort over Trebes to open the scoring and claim the goal of the game.

Rovers doubled their advantage eight minutes later as Parker brought down the rampaging Allan 25 yards from goal. Furness struck a curling effort over Ives four man wall heading for the top corner Trebes flung himself high to his left to get the faintest of touches and deflect the effort onto the underside of the crossbar. The ball rebounded down onto the goal line and in spite of Trebes’s attempt to recover Ives defenders were slow to react leaving Jack Chandler with the simple task of prodding the ball home.

With Ives now desperately pushing forward in search of a way back into the game two down became three just after the hour as man of the match Allan slid a ball through to give Diaper a run on Jarvis Wilson there was no recovery tackle this time as a slip by the Ives centre back left the Rovers centre forward clear. He cleverly drew the exposed Trebes to him before crashing the ball into the far corner to spark wild celebrations amongst the small group of Rovers supporters behind their dugout. 

Manager Marheineke was left with little option but to throw caution to the wind and he instantly went three at the back sacrificing Joe Hood and Bailey for two wide men in Jordan Patrick and Ben Baker. It may have been that the visitors decided to sit back on their advantage but these two seemed to bring a much greater urgency to Ives efforts and they had an almost instant impact as they stretched the play giving the Rovers back line some new problems to think about. Patrick combined well with Owen Wallis to get the over lapping full back to the bye line five minutes later. Wallis’s pull back picked out Sundire on the edge of the box but his shot was blocked.

Ives route back came courtesy of a controversial decision from referee Ashley List in 74^th minute. An Ollie Snaith corner from the right was met on the volley at the near post by Patrick his goal bound effort struck the arm of Chris Hyem and although the arm was down by the side of the Rovers defender and he was only five yards from Patrick the well positioned Mr List decided that the contact was intentional and awarded a penalty. The ever reliable Parker duly sent Palmer the wrong way to reduce the arrears.

It was now a black and white tide flowing towards Rovers goal and just a question of whether, or not the clock could tick down quickly enough for them. In 77^th minute Kelly dribbled his way through a couple of tackles on the left before laying the ball inside to Patrick who cleverly stepped inside his marker before curling an effort inches wide of Palmer’s left hand post with the keeper looking on.

There were still six minutes of the ninety to go when Ives further reduced the deficit as Snaith kept alive a deep cross from the right by Baker committing the defence before laying the ball back to Sundire 25 yards from goal. His first time effort took a slight deflection on the way and beat Palmer, who saw it late, low to his left with the keeper a little slow to get down and unable to prevent the shot creeping in the bottom corner of the net.

Rovers back line were just pleased to hammer the ball anywhere to get a bit of relief and a couple disappeared in the direction of the school. The engine power of Parker is amazing and he continued to provide Ives driving force in search of the equaliser going close himself three minutes from time as he played a one two with Snaith on the edge of the box before curling his effort just wide.

The equaliser did arrive in the final of the ninety minutes as Patrick managed to get across in front of keeper Palmer to try and get a flick onto an in-swinging cross from the right by Snaith. Patrick did not get a touch but he did enough to force the Rovers keeper into taking his eye off the ball allowing it to sail on straight into the far corner of the net.

There was still chance for the hosts to complete a highly unlikely comeback win as a Snaith corner deep in added time evaded everyone at the near post and arrived at the feet of Kelly eight yards out but he failed to hit the target flashing his shot inches wide of the near post.

Ives record in penalty shoot outs has never been great as the only one I can remember us winning in the last few years was the most vital of all in the play-off semi final at Egham. Sure enough this did not turn out to be Ives night as the only spot kick missed was the very first taken which was struck well by Sundire only for keeper Palmer to pull off an excellent save to his left. Furness, Spark, Harradine and Charlie Bowen all scored for the Rovers as did Groves, Snaith and Parker for the Ives leaving it to Ross Munro to take the visitors to glory as he dinked the final penalty down the middle with Trebes going left. 

Result :  St Ives Town  3  Godmanchester Rovers  3 –  Godmanchester won 5-3 on penalties

Goals : Parker 75 pen, Sundire 84, Snaith 90

Team : Trebes, Hood (Patrick 66), Wallis, Kelly, Groves, Jarvis Wilson, Sundire, Parker (capt), Dylan Wilson, Bailey (Baker 66), Snaith

Unused subs : Moyes

Supporters man of the match : Robbie Parker

Attendance : 94

Report by Nigel Howlett. Photos by Louise Thompson