The Mikes 0-1 Sutton Coldfield Town

In a game as close as the score would suggest, one superb pass separated the combatants - but more of that later. Both teams looked to be at strength, and both tried to play football, to give a healthy turnout of spectators an enthralling afternoon.

The opening minutes saw the Royals on the attack, a five man Boldmere wall needed after eight minutes to repel a free kick just outside their box. For only the second time in nine games Owen Parry didn’t score, Pedro Lima’s marking of him describable as “all embracing”. Our referee had a constant task distinguishing the determined from the illegal, as everyone threw themselves wholeheartedly into this encounter. The Mikes began to find equity after the initial quarter of an hour, but promising moves frequently ended with a misplaced pass. With a quarter of the game gone, battered match balls needed to be replaced twice in two minutes: surely, someone should have prayed for the ball over the Christmas period. For all the full blooded effort on display, people kept their discipline, and only two yellow cards were handed out, half an hour having passed before the first “real” foul merited one. The first period ended with concerted Boldmere pressure, the Mikes coming closest to scoring when, from a corner, Parry unleashed a rocket from seven yards, hitting Royals’ stopper James Beresford full in the face. Nosebleed meant a shirt replacement, and so he was numberless for the rest of the fray. Further Sutton defence in depth kept the scoresheet void at the break.

The hosts had most of the territory in the opening stages of the second period; but, with the hour just gone, came the game’s only goal. A pinpoint ball across the park found our old friend Kyle Byrne. The Mikes looked for an offside flag; but our linesman was scurrying forward, banner unraised. In came the centre…and a roar went up from the visiting contingent as Cameron Collins arrived to smash home from close in. The last half hour saw the Mikes on the attack in search of an equaliser, the Royals breaking dangerously at times, trying to put the result beyond doubt. On one such, James Tague had a go from all of thirty yards, with Callum Smith lost in no man’s land. An “Oooh” went up as the ball went out off the top of the bar. Boldmere having to throw men forward (attacker Callum Ballinger coming on for defender Lewis Allison), these forays saw a Rhys Hilton cross trickle tantalisingly across the home target. The game ended with Boldmere turning the screw, at two points nineteen bodies crowding the Sutton penalty area. A thirty-yard, Ben Usher-Shipway fizzer was diverted away for a corner; and Royal joy was completed by the sound of the final whistle.

Boldmere St Michaels: Callum Smith; Lewis Allison (Callum Ballinger 87); Kai Knight; Joe Hull; Harry Craven; Jack Byrne; Ben Usher-Shipway; Callum Gittings (Harry Sweeney 45); Owen Parry; Johnny Johnston (Andre Brown 66); O’Shane Stewart.
Subs not used: Ross Evans; Tazivaishe Chibaya.

Sutton Coldfield Town: Jonathan Brown; Aris Christophorou; Taylor Carter-Byrne; Pedro Lima; James Beresford; Fraser Doyle; Jack Burgess (Ryan Edmunds 71); Cameron Collins; James Tague; Rhys Hilton; Kyle Byrne (Alex McSkeane 79).
Subs not used: Tom Hurley; Remmie Birch; Eldison Antonio.