A cagey F.A Cup tie ends with a last gasp winner for Bognor Regis, leaving Weston desperately unlucky after a hard fought match.
The first ten minutes were devoid of many clear-cut chances, the only real action being a speculative shot from Bognor that Luke Purnell palmed over the bar. However two good chances came in quick succession for the Seagulls; Aden Baldwin looped a header towards goal that the keeper caught well, quickly after Dayle Grubb had another decent headed chance but it didn’t trouble the goal keeper too much.
In the 29th minute Jake Lee had a glorious chance, Naby Diallo struck a low hard shot that bounced off the keeper and into the path of Lee who diverted his shot wide, much to the disbelief of everyone in the ground. Shortly after, the impressive Tristan Plummer skinned his marker with a couple of step-overs and finessed a beautiful curling strike towards the top corner only for Bognor’s keeper to pull off an unbelievable save at full stretch to deny the Gogglebox star.
However the Seagulls eventually got their deserved goal; Plummer on the opposite wing to his first chance worked a yard of space and arrowed a shot towards the bottom corner, a deflection off Jake Reid took it into the back of the net in the 43rd minute sending the Seagulls in at the half time break 0 – 1 up and deservedly so.
The second half began in the worst possible way Weston, a low cross was fizzed into the box from the right wing that took a nasty deflection off Aden Baldwin and past Luke Purnell to level the score for the hosts in the 49th minute. Ironically, injury was quickly added to insult, the best player of the game up to that point, Plummer, had to be substituted off due to an ankle injury.
The complexion of the game definitely changed after that, the wind was taken out of Weston’s sails and they struggled to adjust to not having target man Jake Reid up front after he was also subbed off.
Both sides created a plethora of chances yet struggled to add the finishing touch, most notably Jacob Cane heading just over the bar after good work down the wing from Jake Mawford and Ashley Harper. Despite Mawford playing well after coming on the pitch, his afternoon ended in disappointment when he saw a second yellow card in the 87th minute.
When a replay looked all but certain, at the end of a lengthy period of added time, James Crane got on the end of a deep header at the far post to scramble the ball past Purnell and to send the Rocks to the next stage of qualification for the Emirates F.A Cup.
The final score was 2-1 to Bognor Regis despite a very impressive first half showing from Weston. Our next game is at home to Dartford this coming Saturday, we hope to see you there.
Weston MOTM: Ashley Harper
Bognor: Dan Lincoln, Calvin Davies, James Crane, Doug Tuck, Sami El-Abd, Chad Field, Jimmy Muit, Dan Beck (Capt), Harvey White, Ollie Pearce, Ben Swallow.
Subs: Alex Parsons, Jimmy Wild, Joe Lea, Pat Suraci, Corey Heath, Lewis Boughton.
Weston: Luke Purnell, Ashley Harper, Danny Greenslade, Jacob Cane, Aden Baldwin, Jason Pope, Tristan Plummer, Naby Diallo, Jake Reid, Dayle Grubb (Capt), Jake Lee
Subs: Ben Seymour, Ashley Kington, Jake Mawford, Jarrad Welch, Irnti Rapai, Liam Kington