FA cup fever came to the Central Ground today with the first qualifying round against local rivals, Rushall Olympic. Sadly, we no longer get to play them in the league, but last season you’ll remember the thrilling 3:4 defeat. Toothy rings the changes from the game at Coleshill, bringing back Gwilliams in Goal, Smith, Mutton, Haughton, Clarke, Hearsey and Nadat. This shows his intention to proceed further in the competition.

The game started at a blistering pace with the ball being passed end to end. Old Sutton lads Lyttle and Singh combined to take the first shot of the game, but is was fired high over the centre of the crossbar. Minutes later Benjamin Lund curled a ball past the Sutton defender straight into the arms of Gwilliams.

Rushall had started the game well and it was 8 minutes in before Sutton had any real effort on goal. Haughton ran down the right wing, came inside the Rushall defence, and had a shot only to be blocked by the Rushall defence. On 11 minutes, Tyler Lyttle nearly came back to haunt Sutton as he weaved in and out of the Sutton defence. His resulting shot ended up cannoning off the lower left-hand post, and was eventually cleared by Sutton.

On 17 minutes, Palmer came on for the injured Smith forcing an early substitution by Toothy. Haughton and Dawes were combining well and with their pace and trickery, they were causing Rushall some problems. On 25 minutes Haughton drew a foul and the resulting free kick was headed down in the box by Clarke, but the Rushall keeper collected it comfortably.

Sutton squandered another chance minutes later when Nadat turned his man in the box but shot the ball high and wide. Letford showed his silky skills for Sutton as he beat two Rushall defenders and completed a pass to Nadat; sadly, it came to nothing for Sutton as his pass was blocked.

On 38 minutes Sutton had a blip in defence as Lund is played through into Sutton’s penalty area, he avoided Barkers challenge, slid the ball past a flaying Gwilliams and GOAL! it was 0:1 to Rushall.

Letford had a shot blocked a minute later which was created from excellent hold-up play from Nadat. Sutton kept pushing to get back into the game, and on 42 minutes Nadat had our Chairman jumping out of his seat when his shot hit the side netting. The angle from the stand made it look like it had gone in, wishful thinking on the fans part!

A half time talk by Toothy seemed to have put some fire into Sutton at the start of the second half. On 48 minutes Clarke whipped a ball into the penalty area, Nadat got a whisker on the ball, and GOAL! He shinned it into the goal past the advancing keeper. Sutton had a deserved equaliser.

Letford then delights the crowd with his Messi-esque run, he beat several players, avoided tackles, but then shot straight at the keeper. The crowd cheered and clapped knowing Sutton were really starting to come back into the game. Letford really stepped up to the plate in this game with a Cruyff style turn and shot come cross which failed to find a Sutton player.

On the hour Rushall bring Richards on, another former Sutton player for Gurjit Singh. Sutton managed to defend successfully against one of their former quality players and now they had to do the same with another. On 63 minutes Letford passes the ball for Nadat to play a it through to Clarke whose effort sadly goes high over the bar. Nadat then goes one on one with Rushall’s keeper, but unfortunately lifts the ball over him and the crossbar.

Sutton were really pushing believing they could get a victory, but on 70 minutes GOAL! Rushall took the lead again when Sammons Cleverly made his way into the box and fired
low into the right-hand corner. 1 :2 down and Sutton had it all to do again.

On 74 minutes Letford almost scored the leveller following a Clarke cross into the box, but somehow the ball seemed to get stuck under his feet and the chance was lost. Sutton bring on Onyeulo (JJ !) for Palmer on 78 minutes and he got straight into the game by laying the ball to Nadat who saw a weak effort go straight to the keeper.

Success on 81 minutes when a delightful ball in from Dawes saw Beza unmarked at the far post and GOAL! A bullet was fired in the net. This was no more than Sutton deserved, especially for Beresford who had another fine game.

Despite a few more half chances, neither side could find the winner, and so a replay is scheduled at Dale Lane on Monday night. Both Sutton and Rushall produced a really entertaining game where both sides had an attacking mentality and provided the fans with a great footballing spectacle.

A great game was enjoyed Saturday and we are looking forward to Monday already! Well done lads.

Come on you Royals.