Sils progress in cup competition

The Sils 1st XI hosted North Notts on Sunday in the national trophy first round in what would turn out to be a high scoring and tense affair.

The Sils started the brighter of the two sides and, despite a youthful team, took early control of the game when Luke Owen scored his first goal for the club after some smart skills took him around the keeper and scoring into an empty net. The Sils continued to dominate via skipper Jamie Clapham in the middle of the park and they soon doubled their lead when Jon Hollway hammered the ball home from his reverse stick. However, Notts hit back almost immediately to reduce the deficit with a well worked counter attack. The game settled down then with both sides unable to convert chances until just before half time when Matt Fell picked a fizzing knee high cross from player coach Dan Sulway into the roof of the net, but yet again Notts scored almost straight away to leave the game 3-2 at the half time break.

The second half found Notts in the ascendency and within five minutes they had levelled the scores at 3-3. As the game progressed debutants Luke Kent and Matt Deakin showed their youthful energy with several marauding runs down the right flank one of which led to a Sils corner where Jon Hollway netted his second off the rebound, once again with his reverse stick. With time running out Notts managed to find another equaliser after some interesting challenges were allowed to go in the visitors favour levelling the scores at 4-4. At this point penalty flicks looked imminent until some quick thinking from Jamie Clapham on the top of the Notts ‘D’ allowed him to find an unmarked Jon Hollway to complete his hat trick and seal the Sils victory with only one minute left on the clock.

The Sils reward is to host Stourport on the 16th November at 2.30pm with all support appreciated.