Leven make the final!

OK another sort of blast from the past. In 2009, I spent many hungover Sunday morning's watching my friend's kids football team. After I watched the game I used to write up a match report for him for publication in the grassroots football section of the local paper, the Evening Gazette.
Now, last Sunday, Danny invited me over to watch them 2 years on in the semi-final of the TJFA Challenge Cup. A good game of football, so I reverted back to type and wrote him a match report. As it will be cut to shreds by the Gazette I feel I should post it on here in all its glory. However as its kids names in the piece I have decided to change the names to 90's footballers for my own amusement.

A hard fought 3-1 win against South Park Rangers takes Leven AFC into the final of the TJFA Challenge cup with 2 goals from John Fashanu and Julian Joachim grabbing the winner.

The first half started off as a scrappy affair, both teams struggling to get the ball down and play their football. South Park had the better of the early chances; they had a shot from the edge of the box that was hit straight at goalkeeper Shaka Hislop. They also had a one on one chance which Hislop again managed to get a strong hand to and turned it around his left hand post.

It was the end of the half when the deadlock was broken. John Fashanu was sent through one on one and managed to loop the ball over the South Park goalkeeper’s head to grab his first of the afternoon.

The second half started with a frantic pace, much quicker than the first. It was Rangers who struck the first blow when they were awarded a penalty as a Leven defender was judged to have handled the ball on the line to prevent a goal. However they failed to make it count as Shaka Hislop pulled off a magnificent save to keep Leven in the lead.

It wasn’t long before South Park were back level. A ball was sent forward and after a good turn the Rangers striker struck it into the bottom left hand corner.

South Park failed to kick on from their equaliser and after Darren Anderton struck the bar from a fantastic free kick, John Fashanu was there to finish with an excellent acrobatic overhead kick to grab his second of the game.

Leven then added to the lead shortly after. Georgi Kinkladze showed great skill and hard work to hit the by-line and square the ball to Julian Joachim who drilled it into the bottom corner.

South Park took the game to Leven and had a few half chances in the remaining minutes, but Leven held their nerve and forced their way into the final.