Cray Valley (Paper Mills) reached the last four of the BUILDBASE FA Vase at the weekend with a stunning 3-1 win at Wessex League pacesetters Willand Rovers.
Ahead courtesy of Gavin Tomlin’s strike on the half hour, PM were pegged back within seven minutes when Ryan Guppy equalised for the home side. But in the second half, a double from veteran striker Kevin Lisbie sealed the last four place.
KSN caught up with Kevin Watson as he ironically watched his semi final opponents Canterbury City come from behind to beat Bigglewade at Salters Lane on Sunday afternoon, as we started by asking if what the club has achieved has sunk in yet with the manager. “Not really,” Watson admitted, “but I’m sure it will depend who we get in the next round. It was a nice occasion for the club and the atmosphere on the coach in the four hour coach trip home was great.”
“It was nice and was very pleased for the lads as we beat some very good opposition. I can’t say they were tougher than expected as I don’t know really what to expect but we had to perform very well to get the result that we did in 90 minutes. Going to extra time would have been tough but we’ve got to play home and away in the semi final anyway which will be interesting in itself. Means that we’ve got to play two more League games elsewhere but why wouldn’t we take that now with a Final that close – we’ll be playing two games a week now undoubtedly!”
“Our players were magnificent on Saturday – none of them had stage fright in front of a big crowd on a big occasion and they dealt with it really well and its tough to do as a player but they were magnificent.”
“We’re at a stage where we really don’t care who we play as we’ve got to beat them to go anywhere near winning the Trophy.”
Watson as we said had travelled to see the final quarter final on Sunday and he wasn’t disappointed as Canterbury City and Biggleswade fought out an intriguing tie which ended with two Southern Counties East – Kent League or whatever – have two Semi Finalists in the same season for the very first time!
City were rocked on the back foot early on when Tom Cookman put Biggleswade ahead and for a while, you really did fear for City. But yet just before half-time, Chris Saunders equalised gloriously for Canterbury totally out of the blue, an d whatever Ben Smith said to his charges beyond his
When he spoke to KSN after the game, City boss Ben Smith was just as overwhelmed as Watson had been earlier. “We’re still in the Vase in March!” he said almost in total disbelief. “We’re going to be in the Vase in March – can you believe that! We knew that they were a good side and we knew that if we tried to match them playing purist football we would have been beaten by a few!” Smith admitted. He went one, “It was a case of trying to make it horrible and for the first twenty five minutes they frustrated the hell out of me as we made it nice and easy for them!”
“They posed a huge problem for a while after they scored as they had so much possession. But I’d made it clear before the game that possession didn’t interest me – I just wanted to get it forward and test them out and to be fair, they were stronger than I thought they would be. But at the end of the day, we scored two very good goals to earn our place in the next round.”
“It was a huge gamble bringing in Luke Wheatley and Phil Starkey – morally do I do that? – but I’ve got to protect all the interests of the everyone at the club and everyone in the squad. There were players who weren’t in the squad today for me bringing the other lads in and maybe two seasons ago when I first started out, I wouldn’t have done that. But at the end of the day now, because of the decisions that I have made today, those players who haven’t been involved have the chance now to force their way into the a team for a FA Vase Semi-Final.”
Speaking to both managers as we did before the draw was made on Monday lunchtime, both Smith and Watson both agreed that the one tie that they didn’t want was to play each other – and that is of course exactly who the draws us
Its ironic that when you look down the “official” attendances announced in SCEFL Premier Division this season, the one meeting of our semi-finalists so far this season – a Badgers on January 19th – had one of the smallest in the Division so far! Were you one of the 33 who attended that day?