​Cup agony for Asfordby Amateurs Development

The previous meeting between the two in the league resulted with Asfordby being on the wrong end of a high-scoring defeat, but that did not seem to affect them when the tie kicked off.

Both sides tried hard to control the game, and for the first 30 minutes chances were few with Asfordby keeper Lucy Jackson twice off her line quickly to deny the hosts.

The breakthrough came in the 35th minute when Alice Hartop received the ball just inside the home teams half, and unusually, had time to decide what to do with it before she was tackled.

Because of Brookside’s close marking she had very few options, so she took a speculative shot on goal. To her delight it soared over the keeper’s head and into the top corner of the goal.

Brookside came out for the second half determined to get back into the tie. They changed the way of playing by pushing up more, and getting more bodies into the box.

This paid off when, five minutes after the kick-off, they managed to get the ball into the box and it was bundled across the line.

On 65 minutes Asfordby’s Maria Panayi received the ball, and breaking forward past two defenders with only the keeper to beat, shot from 18 yards only to see the ball skim over the top.

As the time went on it began to look like the tie was going to be settled with penalties which would have been a fair result, but in the 75th minute Asfordby gave away a free kick at the edge of the penalty box and once again, the ball eventually was forced over the line.

Five minutes from time Asfordby also had a goalmouth scramble a metre away from the Brookside goal, but they could not emulate the home team’s luck and the ball came out of the melee of legs and went the wrong side of the post.

Although disappointed at the 2-1 result and not progressing to the semi-final, Asfordby did take heart that this time of meeting Brookside they were unlucky and not trounced as previously.

*The weekend also saw the U13s team progress to the next round of the county cup with a 2-0 win against Glenfield.

The U18s managed a 1-1 draw away to Kibworth and the first team managed to come back from 1-0 down at half-time to take the win 5-1.