Stotfold bounce back to beat Holmer Green

It had rained hard during the day and the pitch was sodden with standing water starting to collect all over the Roker Park pitch. When the game got under way conditions dictated that sliding tackles were going to fly in and mistakes were potentially going to be made on a difficult night for keepers.

Stotfold were making the early running and took the lead on 12 minutes. Billy Baird collected the ball on the edge of the box, dodged a couple of attempted tackles and let fly through a crowd of players and found the bottom corner for 1-0.

Holmer to their credit did not rest and tried to press high but without any cutting edge or real clear cut chances as the Stotfold defence stood firm. The hosts were playing effectively on the break trying to exploit the pace of Drew Cardines and Redha Zekri.

Then on the half hour mark Holmer got their equaliser which can only be described as fortunate as a lofted free kick into the box was missed by Adam Harpur and found its way into the bottom corner.

Stotfold flew out of the traps at the start of the second half and two minutes in Zekri ran the right hand channel and cut back for Cardines to arrive bang on cue for a simple tap home.

Then Cardines became provider two minutes later when he cut in from the left only to have his heels clipped for a stonewall penalty. Up stepped Zekri to cooly slot into the bottom left hand corner for 3-1.

It was more of the same from Stotfold as they continued to press high and create chances. Then with 20 minutes left Zekri, who was now becoming a complete menace to the Holmer defence, raced on to a through ball only to be taken out by the keeper for another penalty.

This time Anthony Wright took the responsibility, with Zekri struggling from the challenge, and he converted.

Stotfold then rang the changes to replace some tired legs and tighten up to see the game out as all three very experienced subs were introduced with a combined age of 90 between them.