Wednesday 11th March, 2026 | Soul Tower Hamlets 0-1 Buckhurst Hill | Peter Butcher Memorial Trophy Quarter Final | Attendance : 45
By Harry Biggs
Buckhurst Hill FC made a remarkable turnaround from Saturday’s league disappointment against Little Oakley, after a 1-0 victory away from home against Soul Tower Hamlets, which secured ‘The Stags’ a place in the semi final and a tie against White Ensign.
Mark Williams made three changes to the side that saw the our 16 game unbeaten run end on Saturday. Archie Hammond came into the eleven replacing Josh Banfield, who made the bench. Yannis Mengou made just his second start for the club after he came in for Callum Maltese, who was also named on the substitutes bench. The final change saw one of our longest serving players still with the club, Ethan Daniels, who came into the side to start over Harvey Brown, but unfortunately Daniels’ rare start came to an abrupt end when he came off after just twelve minutes with a facial injury.
Onto the action now and it was The Stags who started the better out of the two sides with an early chance from Arthur Massingham deflected just wide of goal.
The visiting Hill kept pushing for an opener and shortly after Massingham’s effort, Lusher and Hammond were able to have a go at goal but the efforts were unfortunately unsuccessful.
Some more efforts came the way of Hill but a header which was just over from Lusher and another effort a few minutes later from the young striker, were unable to give The Stags the lead.
Shortly after, Christian North was called into action when he made a blinding save to deny Soul of the opener.
Just before the interval, The Stags took the lead when a corner from flicked towards the far post by Nicoloau with the ball eventually dropping over the keeper and into the net to give Hill the advantage just before the break.
Onto the second half and upon the hour mark, Nicoloau was close to doubling The Stags’ lead and his goal tally for the night when his header from another sublime cross by Edwards trickled past the post in what was almost a repeat of the first goal.
Harry Lusher saw another one of just chances blocked away from goal with this time, his shot cleared off the line by a Soul defender after he dinked the ball around the Soul keeper.
Luckily, The Stags were able to graft and book themselves a place in the semi final in what was a true enticing and entertaining game of football despite the look of the sideline.
TEAM:
North 🧤🟨, Foster, Edwards, Williams ©, Fernandez 🟨, Daniels, Massingham, Nicolaou ⚽️, Lusher 🟨, Mengou, Hammond
SUBS:
Banfield (49’ – Foster), Maltese (84’ – Massingham), Twumasi (14’ – Daniels), Martin