Emirates FA Cup 2nd Qualifying Round
Tuesday 2nd October 2018
Report and Photos: Stuart Tree
Corinthian-Casuals earned themselves a replay against National League South high flyers St Albans City with a late equaliser from Josh Uzun on Tuesday evening.
It was no less than deserved from the Amateur side as they held their own against Ian Allinson’s Saints in the FA Cup Second Qualifying Round.
Whilst City ply their trade one league higher, Casuals never looked over-awed by their counterparts. In fact, it was Casuals who started the brighter. Jordan Clarke had the first real chance of the game when his shot was well saved from Dean Snedker.
Mu Maan went even closer as his 25 yard free kick smacked off the inside of the post and scrambled to safety.
But St Alban’s struck first, cruelly on the stroke of half time. A David Noble free kick somehow evaded everyone and keeper Brad Comins could only parry the shot into the path of David Moyo who dispatched from close range.
Casuals came close again in the early stages of the second half when Maan’s shot was parried up in the air by Snedker and nearly bounced over the goal-line.
Frustration turned to sorrow when Danny Cunningham looked to have suffered a serious injury and had to be stretchered off the field and attend hospital.
Comins had to be on his toes on a couple of occasions, closing down the oncoming Saints attacks and the defensive line were much improved from the 6-1 drubbing to Enfield on Saturday.
With time running out, Josh Uzun was introduced for the first time this season following a lengthy lay-off through injury.
It was his cross in the 85th minute that was deflected off Tom Bender’s leg and evaded Snedker to find the far corner.
Casuals had a couple of threatening corners in an attempt to win the tie but the two sides will have to go again in the next week to find out who faces Taunton Town in the next round.
“Could’ve won? Should’ve won!” said Manager James Bracken after the match. “They’ll probably say they should’ve won it but that’s football. I thought we had the better chances, including the debatable one that might’ve crossed the line.
“We should’ve been 2-0 up before they scored.
“It was a stark contrast to Saturday. That wasn’t only my biggest defeat in management but by far the worst performance I’ve ever seen any of my teams produce in a thousand-plus games. Even when I was at Sutton with my Youth teams, I never saw such an inept, naïve display. There was a lack of energy, desire, commitment… everything.
We’ve addressed it in a methodical way. Let’s look at this as to where can we be better. It wasn’t acceptable.
Tonight, those boys were fantastic. Result aside, I said let’s go home proud of our efforts. Let’s give our fans something to cheer about like we did at Billericay last year. Let’s make sure the buzz of our performance sends both the players and fans home with a good feeling.
“We’ve got another shot at this now. It’ll be another tough game. I feel they underestimated us leaving their top goalscorer on the bench. That imitated to me that perhaps they thought we were a soft touch. But hey, if they’d watched us on Saturday, that’s probably what they went by.
“But we’re out there again and with a bit of luck, we can get to this level once more and give it a good go.
“After the Carshalton win, we had three or four training sessions where we worked on replicating that performance, replicating the areas we want to do well in, replicate the shape, the movement… everything. And then we went into that game against Enfield on Saturday and it all went out of the window.
“But performances like tonight gives us confidence and it’s something we can take into games. When you see that level of performance, we’re a playoff challenging team in the Bostik Premier. That’s what that level was worthy of. We just need to replicate this more often.
“It’s not like every ball ran for us or every fancy trick we’ve tried has come off. It was just a solid workmanlike performance with quality when we’ve had the ball and with desire to get back when we haven’t. It was a proper football team with a proper game plan.”