Alvechurch 0 v St Ives Town 1
Pitching-In Southern League Premier Central 19-10-2024
Nigel Howlett reports from Lye Meadow
A near perfect away performance with everyone doing their job to at least a 7/10 ensured Ives took all three points back to Cambridgeshire. The thing that made this result all the more remarkable was that it was achieved without inspiration skipper Alex Collard who missed the game having picked up a knock in Monday evening’s victory over Biggleswade. The man who came in to replace Collard was the ever reliable unsung hero Paddy Casey who fully deserved his man of the match accolade from the small group of travelling Ives fans. Church supporters will say that the game hinged on the sending off of midfielder Joe Willis who picked up two yellow cards from referee Alex Rolfe inside three minutes. Truth is that Ives had repelled everything that their hosts had thrown at them with a full compliment on the pitch and should have been in front long before substitute Greg Kaziboni grabbed the winner twelve minutes from time.
Apart from Collard’s replacement by Casey the only other changes to the starting line up for Ives was the return from international duty of Jernade Meade who came into his usual role with Montserrat at left wing back where he replaced Aaron Smith and Silvano Obeng coming back in at centre forward for Greg Kaziboni who dropped to the bench. The hosts coming off the back of an excellent away point at much fancied Telford made only one change with Sam Perry coming in for Dylan Allen-Hadley who dropped to the bench.
The game started in brilliant sunshine, but on the first soft pitch of the season after heavy overnight rain in the West Midlands. It was the hosts who were first out of the traps with the speedy Ammar Dyer getting outside Benji Mensah down the left in fourth minute and drilling in a low cross shot that was to hot for Dan Wilks to handle but Williams was on hand to hack the ball away before Tyrone Barnett could pounce. Wilks was called into action again four minutes later and this time did very well to hang onto Barnett’s crisp low drive from 15 yards after the big striker latched onto Callum Sullivan’s cross from the right.
Ives first half chance of the game came only ninety seconds later as Meade curled in an inviting free kick from the right that home keeper Ronnie Hollingshead only just managed to touch away from Williams arriving at the back post. The game then descended into a midfield battle with neither side able to create another decent opportunity for the next twenty minutes. But just before the half hour Mensah served up a little bit of brilliance to set up a golden opportunity for Amaru Kaunda to put Ives ahead. The tricky wing back jinked his way into the box going past a couple of defenders to get to the bye line. His attempted cross took a deflection and looped over Hollingshead. Kaunda arriving at the back post unmarked only had to bundle the ball over the line but he chose to try and chest it home and somehow lifted it onto the crossbar from point blank range.
Mensah continued to be in the game at both ends of the park. Kieran Wakefield managed to get the better of him just outside the box in 32nd minute before unleashing a fierce rising drive from the corner of the box that a well positioned Wilks plucked out of the air. Two minutes later at the other end of the park Mensah continued to cause problems for the hosts back line curling in a teasing cross from the right that picked out Kaunda by the penalty spot but the striker failed to keep down his first time volley.
The final opportunity of the first period six minutes before the break saw the same two players combine again with Mensah again getting deep into Church territory before delivering a cross into the centre that just evaded the stretching home skipper Krystian Pearce to get to Kaunda again arriving at the back post. But the young striker had to stretch to get to it and again was unable to keep his volley down.
The Church made a change at half time replacing Sullivan with Allen-Hadley in midfield and it was the hosts that made the best start after the break. Ethan Creary picked up one of six yellow cards for Ives players dished out by referee Rolfe in 54th minute as he pulled back the tricky Dyer. Omari Sterling-James took the resulting free kick and got it up and down over Ives wall but Wilks was perfectly positioned to take the ball into his midriff.
Wilks and Williams then combined to almost gift Church a goal on the hour. Wilks played the ball out to Williams in a central position on the edge of the box but he was instantly pressed by Barnett and his hurried sideways pass to try and find Casey was cut out by Perry. Wilks rescued the situation with an excellent diving save to keep out the midfielder’s powerful drive. Wilks was called into even more spectacular action two minutes later as an intricate Church move ended with Sterling-James feeding the ball into the run of Wakefield who saw his thumping drive from just inside the box turned around the post by the diving Wilks.
With Ives well and truly under the cosh manager Ricky Marheineke knew that he needed to change things to get back control of the game and a triple substitution followed in 66th minute with Johnson Gyamfi, Obeng and Mensah being replaced by David Adegbola, Peter Abimbola and Kaziboni respectively.
Before those changes even had time to bed in there followed a bizarre moment as Kymani Skyers slid into Perry. Referee Rolfe was immediately on hand to quickly issue a yellow card, equally quicky following it with a red. The official seemingly mistaking Skyers for Creary who he had earlier booked. Unlike at Worksop the pleas from Ives players for the referee to take time, have a more careful look at the numbers on the back of Ives black and white shirts and change his decision were listened to and he reverted the decision back to the original yellow card for Skyers. This decision so incensed Willis that he proceeded to berate Mr Rolfe sufficiently to talk himself into a yellow card as well.
That unnecessary yellow for Willis proved very costly for Church only three minutes later when the same player clattered into Albie O’Keefe. To remain consistent with all that he had done up to that point referee Rolfe had to pull out the yellow card and this time it was correctly followed by the red. All this meant that within three minutes Ives had gone from looking like being down to ten men themselves to now finding themselves up against ten men.
In the past Ives have struggled to break down teams that go down to ten but manager Marheineke remained on top of things quickly replacing the tiring Skyers with Smith to reduce the chances of the referee looking to even things up. With Adegbola and Kaziboni now operating in tandem down the right the visitors began to carve out opportunities to win the game. A 75th minute swift interchange of passes between the pair saw the latter feed in Abimbola to the bye line. It took a full length diving touch from Hollingshead to prevent Kaunda getting on the end of his low cross.
The only goal of the game arrived through that right hand channel three minutes later Adegbola ran clear onto Creary’s through ball. He hesitated half expecting the flag to go up with appeals coming from the Church defenders. But the assistant kept his flag down and the young midfielder went on before picking out Kaziboni ten yards out with his pull back. The Ives substitute did not hit his shot cleanly but he got enough on it to beat Hollingshead and go in off the inside of the post.
Two late substitutions by the hosts did not bring them any real hope of a route back into the game as Ives continued to move the ball around well effectively managing the remaining time. Even an added seven minutes did not cause any concern and when the whistle finally went everyone in the squad can congratulate themselves on a very professional performance and the second league win on the road in a row.
The result sees Ives leapfrog the Church into ninth only three points off the play-off places with at least one game in hand on most of the teams above them. The second of three tough away trips in a row comes up on Tuesday as the Ives visit Stamford before a trip to AFC Sudbury next Saturday.
Final Score: Alvechurch 0 St Ives Town 1 Half Time 0 – 0
Goals:
ALVECHURCH:
ST IVES: Kaziboni 78
Team Line Ups:
ALVECHURCH: Hollingshead, Perry, Pearce (capt), Solademi, Willis, Dyer, Sullivan (Allen-Hadley 46, Batchelor 82), Wakefield (Shaw 82), Barnett, Crowther, Sterling-James, Unused subs: Sephton, Peets-Fearon
ST IVES: Wilks, Creary, Meade, Skyers (Smith 74), Williams (capt), Casey, Gyamfi (Adegbola 66), O’Keefe (Hottor 88), Obeng (Abimbola 66), Kaunda, Mensah (Kaziboni 66), Unused subs: none
Referee: Alex Rolfe
Cards: Red: ALVECHURCH: Willis (2 x Yellow) (67) & (70)
Yellow: ALVECHURCH: Wakefield (41), Barnett (45) ST IVES: Williams (28), Gyamfi (47), Creary (54), O’Keefe (56), Skyers (67), Meade (90+2)
IVES SUPPORTERS MAN OF THE MATCH: Paddy Casey
Attendance: 350