KNOCKOUT CUP SEMI-FINAL REPORT – 12th March

PENALTY SHOOT-OUT JOY AS MELKSHAM REACH KO CUP FINAL

Following the merger of the Chippenham and Bath Sunday League’s the meeting of the respective Premier champions AFC Melksham and Kingsmead FC has been eagerly awaited, even more so when they were drawn together in the first of this season’s Cinch Self Storage  sponsored Knockout Cup semi-finals.

AFC Melksham who were last terms beaten finalists suffered the worst possible start when after just 4 minutes they were reduced to 10 men when keeper Adam Dhinsa slid out of the area with the ball in his hands after cutting off a through ball.

Strangely the dismissal of Dhinsa seemed to work in Melksham’s favour and they took the lead via Rhys Talmash, however with the first half drawing to a close Kingsmead fashioned an equaliser when  Antoni Conradi netted to take the teams into the break locked at one-apiece.

As both teams huffed and puffed as they fought to gain the upper hand in what was a thrilling cup tie, Kingsmead saw their numerical advantage cancelled out on 66 minutes as Brad Norris saw red for the Bath based outfit.

With 17 minutes remaining a left footed lob from Johnathan Dolman gave Kingsmead the lead, but with 10 minutes left, parity was restored with D J Wheeler dribbling his way through the Kingsmead defence before seeing his shot take a slight deflection which wrong footed the unfortunate keeper to level matters at 2-each and take the game to a dreaded penalty shoot-out when Melksham despite both Talmash and Paul Gittins missing spot kicks progressed to a third final in 4 years, courtesy of a 5-4 shoot-out success.  

After the first five penalties  both sides had scored three with Melksham stand-in keeper George Bettles and Kingsmead keeper Ben Parsons having saved two each.

Melksham held their nerve to set up a meeting with either last season’s winners FC Box or The British Lion FC.
George Bettles, Wheeler, Owen Pearce, Jack Baker and Kieran Pierce successful from the spot for the home team with Charlie Saunders, Daniel Rossetti, Johnathan Dolman and Archie Morris scored for Kingsmead.

Report courtesy of Mike Rogers & Geoff Thompson