Mousehold through to semi-final

Mousehold 2, Loddon Utd 1In this Shoetraders Cup quarter-final, the Mousehold side was quite evenly balanced between first team and reserve players - a true 'club level' team.

Mousehold 2, Loddon Utd 1

In this Shoetraders Cup quarter-final, the Mousehold side was quite evenly balanced between first team and reserve players - a true 'club level' team.

The game started very evenly, and it was a full 35 minutes before any goals resulted from the end-to-end play.

Loddon went a goal up when their player chased a slow ball goalwards and used his head instead of his foot to knock it down and past the keeper, totally confusing the keeper who had not been expecting that move.

However, Mousehold were not about to take that lying down and just two minutes later had evened the scores.

Chris Vines made a long throw in which was flicked on by Ben Jacob. The ball broke on the edge of the six-yard box and Joe Wilkes swung with his left foot to poke it home.

After the break both sides continued to battle hard, and Mousehold were frustrated when Dwayne Batley came within a whisker when the ball rebounded off the post 58 minutes into the game.

Eventually, however, their efforts were rewarded - on 85 minutes Ben Jacob switched the ball from right to left to Joe Wilkes, who put in a lovely cross across the front of the goal and Chris Vines got his head to it - 'pure quality'!

A final chance deep into injury time rebounded off the bar - Bretty's free-kick right in front of goal was an excellent chance, but the game finished shortly afterwards 2-1 to Mousehold, who were jubilant to be going to the semi-final.

Man of the match went to Ian Hipperson. A very good team game.