JW Hunt Cup
Semi Final
Sporting Khalsa FC v Tividale FC
Tuesday 30th April 2019
Kick off at 7.30pm
THE FACTS
Well we are here back on cup duty and hoping to reach our second cup final of the season. Our penalty shoot out defeat in the Birmingham Floodlit Cup Final was a tough one to take especially as we had played so well to come back from 2-0 down to lead 3-2 by half time.
We played some great stuff at the end of the first half and the majority of the second and maybe should have put the game out of sight early in the second half. But if you don’t punish good sides when you have the chance they are likely to come back and punish you and Atherstone are a very good side. Still whatever happens between now and the end of the season, the lads have done brilliantly with season on season improvement in the last two years. To win the WMRL Premier division and get back into the Midland Football League Premier at the second time of asking. Especially after last seasons travesty of being denied promotion with a better PPG (points per game) than other second place teams that were promoted. Anyway on to this Semi Final and the small matter of Sporting Khalsa.
Sporting Khalsa have become one of the biggest non league clubs in the Black Country and are definitely heading for greater things. You cannot be nothing but impressed of their Aspray Arena home and on the pitch under the management of Ian Rowe they have risen to be one of the top level 5 sides in the country. So if you didn’t know before you now know the difficulty of the task ahead.
This will be our second cup meeting this season after our 2-1 defeat to them in the F.A. Cup Extra Preliminary Round back in August of last year. In a match where we hit the woodwork a number of times, Tividale’s Demetri Brown had cancelled out Josh Thomas’s early goal. But in the end our FA Cup run was ended with a Jay Holdcroft second half strike.
Last season we met in the 2nd Round of the Walsall Senior Cup and Khalsa ran out comfortable 3-0 winners in a game played at Castlecroft while Khalsa’s 3G pitch was being laid. Mykel Beckley 2 and Craig Bannister were the Khalsa scorers.
Our poor run against Khalsa started in our 2016-2017 MFL Premier relegation season when Khalsa did the double over us. The first game at The Beeches ended 3-2 to the visitors in a thriller of a game, Bradley Lawley, Deqwon Ebanks and Lewis Taylor-Boyce got the Khalsa goals while Lewis McPike and Dan Smith netted for Tividale. The Alpay Arena fixture was an easier afternoon for Khalsa winning 3-0 with goals from Fabian Kasiama, Marvin Nisbett and a David Meese penalty.
We have to go back to April 2015 for the last time we tasted success against Khalsa and that was in the Quarter Final of this competition when after a 0-0 draw Andy Parson’s hit our winning penalty in a shoot out that ended 4-3. We then went on to win the competition in that year.
THE RECENT LEAGUE FORM
Sporting Khalsa- WWWDLL
Tividale – LWDWWW
THE SQUAD NEWS
Freddie Watts, Tyree Clarke and Rion Francis-Mills are out for the season. Otherwise it is a full squad
THE SPECTATOR DETAILS
AFC Wulfrunians
Castlecroft Road,
Admission Prices Adults £5, Concessions £3
Match programme £??
