Coggeshall 1 – 1 Brantham Athletic

Coggeshall win 4-2 on Penalties

SEE BELOW FOR MATCHDAY PICTURES

Coggeshall Town moved into round 4 of the League Challenge Cup with a fine win over Premier Division Brantham Athletic after a penalty shootout victory. As in previous midweek cup matches the management team made 8 changes to the starting lineup from the weekends team giving some young players some experience playing in the 1st Team.

The West Street pitch was again in excellent condition as the game got underway with another excellent crowd in attendance.

Coggeshall made the brighter start with their young players showing no fear in getting on the ball as they created a couple of openings early on but couldn’t beat the Brantham keeper with both Kieran Adams and Ricky Loveridge going close. Both young wingers were catching the eye giving the Brantham defenders plenty to think about and Tyrone Scarlett was looking a real threat down the middle.” The Town” took the lead on the 20 minute mark after another good run and cross from Loveridge fell to Jordan Palmer in the box who finished nicely from close range to give the home team a deserved lead after making such a bright start. Minutes later though their was a nasty injury to Loveridge after he collided with the Brantham keeper which led to him being stretchered off the field with Ben Barnsley replacing him to make his return to the team after a long lay off through injury. After the long delay it was Brantham who came on strong dominating the possession up to half time, although they had a lot of the ball they didn’t really create much in the way of goal scoring opportunities with Matt Walker in the Coggeshall goal only having to make one save during that spell keeping the home teams one goal advantage in place at half time.

The second half started with both teams going for the next goal making it quite a end to end game. It was Brantham who scored the equalising goal on the hour after a lack of concentration from Coggeshall allowed the visitors to get back on level terms. That goal seemed to stun Coggeshall into action and for the remainder of the game they really started to take control of the game going close to scoring a winner on several occasions .”The Town” had two goals disallowed with both efforts from Kieran Adams, the second goal looked like a perfectly good goal but the linesman ruled it to be offside. Coggeshall also went close after a long range effort from Tyrone Scarlett cannoned back off the crossbar. Brantham managed to hang on for the draw and force the game into a penalty shootout.

Coggeshall missed their first spot kick but went onto score their remaining shots with Brantham missing two with one effort being kept out by a tremendous save by Matt Walker allowing Dean Gilder to win the tie for Coggeshall by slotting the deciding penalty home with great confidence to send ” The Town ” through to the next round.

It was another great nights Work from the team showing the tremendous strength in depth the club has by again making many changes to the lineup and still coming away with a victory over a team from the league above. The team are at home again Saturday when Haverhill are the visitors to West Street.