IN the last 15 years, only one District League side has won the Huddersfield FA Challenge Cup – the others all being County Amateur League teams.
And the likelihood is that the story will be the same this year, although the top two in Division I, Newsome WMC and Shepley are still flying the flag.
Last week there were four District-County Amateur clashes and all went the way of the County Am.
Bay Athletic had a five-goal victory but the other three were separated by just the odd goal and two of our teams took the ties to extra-time.
Berry Brow were the host to Golcar United and the score was 4-4 after 90 minutes. The Brow were never in front but never trailed by more than a single goal.
Golcar’s goals were probably more pleasing on the eye, but the close-range efforts of Tom Dyson, Danny Ryan, Liam Walton and Paul Bodsworth counted just as much.
Ifs and buts don’t win matches but early in the second half, a foul on Brow’s Ben Dobson resulted in Golcar being reduced to 10 men. No foul and Dobson would have been through on goal with only the keeper to beat. He still was a distance from goal, but the Brow would have preferred the chance.
Five minutes into extra-time, Golcar scored a rather fortuitous winner as a cross from the left found its way into the top corner of the net.
It was a good display by the Second Division team with 18-year-old Rob Greenhalgh, in his first season on open-age football, not being overawed by the County Am opposition.
Diggle visited high-flying Marsden. The home side started like a house on fire and were two up in 15 minutes.
At that stage, it looked a matter of “how many”. Whether Marsden took their foot off the pedal is a matter of opinion, but Diggle fought their way back with goals from Jeff Whittaker and Chris Moore. A Ryan Hewitt header gave Diggle a 3-2 lead and shortly after, there was an incident which changed the game. Following a foul, there was a melee with players squaring up to each other.
The result was three red cards and the nine men of Diggle now faced the 10 of Marsden. Marsden scored a third to send the game into extra-time.
Diggle fell behind and with a man fewer, the tie looked lost, but Diggle fought back again. They were awarded a penalty and Marsden were now down to nine men.
Jeff Whittaker converted the spot-kick to make it 4-4 with nine men each. With only two minutes to play, Diggle won a corner but when the chance came, the shot was scuffed and to make matters worse, Marsden went down to the other end and grabbed the winner.
Despite the high-scoring game, both keepers were on top form. Marden’s 17-year-old Jack Peacock was making his debut as was John Pooley at the other end of the field.
In fact, Pooley is the normal keeper for Diggle’s third team but was drafted in to make his debut for the firsts due to injuries.
Scholes were the other team to lose by a single goal to a County Am outfit, YMCA. An even first half with few chances was followed by a second half in which the YMCA always looked comfortable.
In League action, the Division Three game between Dalton Crusaders and leaders Holmbridge was a strange affair.
Going into the match, Holmbridge had conceded 13 goals in 12 matches. The score at the break was 1-0 to the Crusaders, which gave no sign as to what was about to take place.
Eleven goals in just 40 minutes – an average of a goal every 210 seconds!
In fact, on two occasions after Holmbridge had scored, the Crusaders took the kick-off and scored immediately. The final scoreline read 7-5 to Holmbridge and the day got better for them with the teams in second, third and fourth all dropping points.
