Saturday was one of those afternoons for everyone at Berks County where they’d have been forgiven for repeating the immortal words of Sir Alex Ferguson..
It was one of ‘those’ afternoons.
At 1.30pm the Reserves kicked off their Berkshire Trophy Centre Cup tie at Cookham Dean Reserves – a supposed mismatch for the Swords who are a Thames Valley Premier Division 3 side compared to Cookham in Division 1 while the first team’s match at home to Highmoor-IBIS Reserves was at 2pm.
By 4.45pm the firsts had suffered a heartbreaking draw from the jaws of victory at Bracknell Sport Centre. The lead image on this story shows Highmoor scoring a late equaliser after the Swords had led 3-1 thanks to goals from Alex Alexandre, Jonathan Gosnell and Joshua Scriven.
A picture says a 1,000 words as they say.
Then there was the beaut of a snap from our man Mark Pugh..
Across in Cookham a very different match was playing out for the Swords Reserves – top of Division 3 and unbeaten against Cookham with three league wins all season in Divison 1 – but still 13 places higher.
By 2.40pm the home side led but just nine minutes later County levelled through Roger Greer, and by 3.04pm they led 2-1 through Sam Clark. The shock was on..
For six minutes anyway when Dean equalised to take the game in to extra-time.
The late show
So the low of a late late equaliser against both side, but where the first team had the natural conclusion of a final whistle in a league game, the reserves had another 30 minutes.
30 minutes that sadly didn’t yield a winning goal.
It did though give goalkeeper Nick Wigget the opportunity to be a hero, saving a penalty to send the Swords through with a 5-4 shootout win.
The highs and lows of football, 3.45pm you are down thanks to a last minute equaliser – half an hour later and the word comes through your reserve side has won through 5-4 on penalties.
