Saturday 1 March 2014

Wollaton FC 1-0 Selston FC

Venue: Wollaton Sports Association Ground, Wollaton Road, Nottingham.

Competition: Notts Senior League, Senior Division

Scorer: Dane Rawson (75)



We expected a little more from both teams - what we were served  was a poor game, with few chances created. Mind you, the foul count was staggering - I didn't actually count them, but the game was stop, start, stop, start throughout the whole 90 minutes. 


Wollaton climbed over their opponents to take third place in the table, but on this evidence the top two, Rolls and Kimberley MW, have little to fear from either of these teams.


Bright sunshine during the game, but still a bit chilly - and the game did nothing to warm the cockles...


The Wollaton Manager was constantly voicing his opinion - constantly chipping away at the officials, and ultimately his calling Assistant Referee Ian Smith a cheat lead to his dismissal from the Wollaton bench. I do like to see passion in a game, but the line between passion and out and out  anger is such a fine one - on this occasion that line was crossed and justice was served.




Wollaton began the game nervously, with keeper Rikki Turner making a couple of near fatal errors before he calmed down and settled into the game. Jordan Alls had Wollaton's best chance as early as the 6th minute, but Selston keeper Jake Simpson managed to dive at the strikers feet and grab the ball.


Selston had a chance to go ahead on 17. Ben Moore's effort was well blocked by Turner, but when the ball ran loose to Jay Cooper 22 yards from goal, he tried to lob the ball into the net,  managing only to send it flying way over the bar. 

Wollaton had their no, 4 and no. 5 booked just before the break. Both sets of players seemed to have forgotten that they were supposed to be playing football and had resorted to fouling each other at every opportunity. H-T 0-0 

Went for a cuppa during the break - £0.50 for a large polystyrene cup. Selston's Jamie Renshaw and Ben Moore came to have a chat with us just before the retart - they seemed very positive they would win this encounter, but neither could have predicted what actually transpired during the second half.

Ben Moore

Jamie Renshaw

In reality, nothing much happened in the first 30 minutes of the second period, but then it went belly up for the visitors.

Lee Day hit a cracking cross field pass from the right, straight into the path of DANE RAWSON who took the ball down sweetly before hammering it into the top corner from about 15 yards. 

Bad enough going a goal down you would think, but Sean Gregory took exception to one of the Wollaton players celebrations and seemed to kick out - in full view of Referee John Middleton. Straight red, no option.

Sean Gregory

So, the visitors were down to 10 men, away from home and a goal down. To give Selston credit, they went forward in an effort to grab at least a share of the spoils, but that left them perilously light at the back and when Lee Day broke away on the half way line, Elliott Jones impeded the striker.

Good luck in Oz, Elliott

For some reason, Mr. Middleton interpeted this as "preventing an obvious goal-scoring chance", and Jones received a straight red card. Ok, I suppose Jones could be deemed as being the "last man", but Day still had a clear 30 yards to go before he could be said to have an "obvious goal-scoring opportunity". I would have thought a caution would have sufficed. This was Jones' last game for Selston before he departs to go and live and work in Australia, so he was more than a little miffed about the decision. F-T 1-0

Admission: £0
Programme: £1.00
Attendance: H/C 31
Cuppa: £0.50 warm and wet.