Tuesday 8th October, 2024 | Barking 0-1 Buckhurst Hill | BBC Essex Senior Cup | Attendance : 58
By Harry Biggs
The Stags are through to the 2nd round of The BBC Essex Senior Cup after a 1-0 win on the road against fellow Essex Senior League side Barking FC at The Lawtech Stadium. Buckhurst Hill have now won all of their last 5 games in all competitions and look to make it another successful season in competition after reaching the quarter finals of The Essex Cup last season with an exit to EFL League Two side Colchester United.
Mark made a few changes to our 4-0 win by the seaside against FC Clacton in The ESL with no Smith or Otuyo available to play in goal so an opportunity would open up for Bradley Monks, a young keeper on loan from our opponents Barking. Okuguni was not available and won’t be for the foreseeable future with an injury so in came club captain Ollie Williams, who was unavailable for our games against Ilford, Takeley & Clacton. Archie Hammond, Tyreece Robertson, Ted Buchanan and a few more players would keep their starting spots with Lucas Willison coming in to start and Alfie Padington making his first start for Buckhurst Hill after a brilliant spell in our reserves and minutes off the bench under Mark.
Onto the action now and The Stags were nearly ahead after 3 minutes after George Thompson played a brilliant pass through to Willison who put his shot straight at The Barking keeper and allowed the hosts’ fans a sigh of relief.
Padington was inches away from scoring his first goal for Buckhurst Hill after again Thompson played a brilliant pass through to the attacker who’s shot was just wide of the posts.
Buckhurst Hill would have a close let off at the 14th minute mark as a dangerous corner was delivered close to the penalty spot and the shot after a scramble inside The Stags penalty area, was hooked over. A minute later and Barking would have another close chance after a powerful shot was fired wide by Akintunde for the hosts’. After 16 minutes Barking would have the ball in the net but the referee saw a foul in the build up on Frempong.
The Stags nearly would be 1-0 up after a brilliant period of build up play from the back and Thompson is played through on the left side and crosses the ball to Robertson which was just in front of the man who’s on brilliant form.
The half would end with the teams level at 0-0 and there was still another 45 minutes of action to separate the two ESL sides in an epic cup clash.
The second half now and we were riding our luck with the weather as the rain started to come down on East London and for a few minutes it didn’t look like we would have another 45 minutes but the teams were out and the cup clash resumed on time.
The Stags looked for a breakthrough after having the majority of possession but Barking would have a few chances which would be skewed. Mark went on to make three changes, which would go on to affect the result of this cup tie as Foyewa, Campbell & Warner were all brought on to try and change the outcome of the game.
After 70 minutes, Buckhurst Hill finally got their breakthrough as super sub Khadean ‘Khads’ Campbell has yet again scored for The Stags after a low shot was fired through the legs of The Barking goalkeeper, who to be honest should have done better but nevertheless The Stags were ahead in this cup tie.
The was not much more action left in the game apart from a brilliant double save from Monks, who deserved a standing ovation for his efforts after getting down low twice to save both the initial shot and rebound shot with his body to surly save The Stags of a late upset.
The referee went on to add nearly 7 minutes onto the 90, but it wasn’t enough to stop Mark & his Stags’, who are now through to the third round of The BBC Essex Senior Cup and will find out their opponents for the next round very soon with some big teams entering the mix.
TEAM :
Monks 🧤, Ola.Williams, Buchanan, Hammond, Harris, Frempong, Padington, Ollie.Williams ©️, Thompson, Willison, Robertson
SUBS :
Campbell ⚽ (64’ – Padington), Foyewa (56’ – Ola.Williams), Warner (65’ – Hammond) , Carolan (81’ – Willison) , Ogunsanya
