Kintbury Rangers 1 Lambourn Sports 3
(Phil Annets, NBFL Media Relations Officer)
Mooney’s Magnificent Strike
Adrian Mooney sealed victory for an impressive Lambourn Sports side with an audacious, spectacular ‘David Beckham-esque’ strike from inside his own half seconds before the final whistle to move Lambourn in the quarter finals of the Charity Shield.
In an error strewn first five minutes that saw defensive mistakes gift golden opportunities for either side, both Kintbury’s keeper Paul O’Hagan and Lambourn’s goalie Steve Annetts produced fine early saves from Adrian Mooney and Scott Bowers respectively. However, another error on five minutes by the Kintbury defence laid the ball at the feet of Matt Hendren on the edge of the area who had plenty of time to find his spot in the bottom left hand corner of the net to make it 1-0 to Lambourn.
The remainder of the first half witnessed some excellent one touch football by Lambourn, particularly up front with Ben Matthews, Adrian Mooney and Matt Hendren linking up well on several occasions putting pressure on the Kintbury goal and unlucky not to stretch their lead. Kintbury’s response was a little less structured reliant on hurried long balls out of defence to capitalise on the pace of their forwards. Despite Lambourn’s dominance, including a 25 yard running shot from Liam Griffin that bounced off the top of the bar, it was Kintbury who produced the best save of the match just before half time when Jake Shearsby shot from 30 yards forcing Steve Annetts to tip the ball onto the bar and over.
The second half saw Kintbury begin to play more football on the ground, and after an opening fifteen minutes of half chances to both sides, they equalised with a superb left footed free kick by Jake Shearsby from the right hand corner of the 18 yard box that curled around the wall and into the top of the net. There was little in the way of goalmouth action for the next quarter of an hour, but soon after Lambourn’s Ben Matthews collected a throw-in on the edge of the area, turned and shot, taking a heavy deflection and looping over O’Hagan in the Kintbury goal to restore Lambourn’s lead.
Lambourn had chances to secure victory in the last 10 minutes, but with seconds remaining it was Kintbury who were awarded a free kick on the half way line. All 10 outfield players moved into the box as keeper O’Hagan stepped up to launch the ball forward. Lambourn quickly cleared their lines and the ball was played up to Mooney just inside the centre circle. A quick look up saw the Kintbury keeper still only halfway back to his goal and so Mooney fired the ball high over his head to bounce up into an empty net. Cue wild scenes of celebration amongst the Lambourn team who mobbed Mooney en masse, and seconds later the final whistle was blown.
