Bromsgrove Sporting 2 (1) v (0) 0 Shirley Town

Smedley Crooke Cup Saturday 7 January 2012

Bromsgrove Sporting collected a notable win against Shirley Town in a competitive Cup game. Shirley were lucky that they collected only one red card as they lost their discipline and finished up with the sending off, 7 other players booked and an official sent from the bench.

Rarely will a match official show so many cards and still risk being accused of leniency as the visitors completely lost the plot and spent the last 10 minutes of the game kicking lumps out of the resilient and well disciplined Sporting players.

Two great strikes from Keith Draper meant Sporting move into the last 16 to play the winners of next week’s game between FC Glades and Fairfield Villa.

The game was fairly evenly matched but Sporting took their chances whilst Shirley spurned the few that a parsimonious Sporting defence allowed them. When Shirley broke past the Sporting back four they found keeper Chris Mole in fine form.

Sporting began to dominate the second half and if it hadn’t been for a combination of poor finishing and good goal keeping from Shirley’s Kenny Sanders they might have wrapped the game up before the 85^th minute strike from Draper sealed a great victory.

Despite two goals from Draper, the Society Man of the Match is Jon Rogers who caused endless problems for the Shirley defence in his role as lone striker.

A sad note to the game was that it appears that an injury to Chris Bright sustained in the first half may well turn out to be a broken collar bone and see Chris miss the rest of the season.

Sporting line up: Mole, Fellows, Harris, Martin, Thurbon, Brookes, Draper, Jenvey (Jones),  Rogers Jon, Wilkes, Bright (Molesworth). Subs not used: Rogers Jamie, Rogers G, Shaw

Shirley line up: Sanders, Farrell S, Redden, Keane, Farrell L, Deeley, Dunkley (Smith-Baines), Longthorn, Chapman, Baxter, Reid (Dugmore)  Subs not used: Connelly, Brearley, Ward.

Cards: Bromsgrove – none. Shirley – Yellow: Dunkley, Farrell, S,  Deeley, Sanders, Keane, Farrell L, Baxter.  Shirley – Red:  Farrell S.

 Man of the Match – Sporting Jon Rogers