Corinthian-Casuals 3 - 0 Leatherhead
Emirates FA Cup 2nd Qualifying Round Replay
Tuesday 21st September 2021
Report: Stuart Tree. Photos: Andy Nunn (photos here)
Corinthian-Casuals cruised into the Third Qualifying Round of the Emirates FA Cup following a convincing 3-0 victory over Leatherhead on Tuesday night.
Goals from Kieron Cadogan, Elliott Bolton and Warren Mfula extended Casuals unbeaten run to six games and a steadfast defence claimed their fourth clean sheet on the bounce.
Following the 0-0 at Fetcham Grove on Saturday, both sides had to go at it again to decide who’d host Wingate and Finchley in the next round. Making just one change (Ricardo Thompson slotting into the midfield), the pace was noticeably quicker than seen at the weekend. There was intent from both sides to take the game to their opponents but it was Corinth who struck the first blow. Kieron Cadogan gave Manny Agboola little chance to stop his 25 yard effort and King George’s erupted.
Casuals remained on top for the majority of the half, and all that was missing was the second goal. Mfula and Bolton both went close. It got worse for Leatherhead when Agboola suffered an injury just before half time. Substitute keeper Jacob Bennett replaced the stricken stopper during the break.
Leatherhead were still in this contest and with a slender 1-0 lead, could just take one chance to level the scores. In a mad minute, it could’ve swung either way. Bolton intercepted a poor clearance from Bennett, firing off a decent attempt. Bennett saved only to parry it to Mfula – who somehow hit the post when all but a tap-in was required. Leatherhead broke and came close to scoring themselves bar a good save from Captain Danny Bracken.
The key moment saw Jack Tucker – excellent all evening clear one off the line from Leatherhead. Had that gone in, we’d have had a different game for sure. Fine margins. But Casuals effectively killed off the tie with just over ten minutes remaining when Bolton snatched his first goal for the club converting a cross with his downward header.
It was wrapped up on the stroke of ninety minutes when a fierce Cadogan shot was fumbled by Bennett, allowing Mfula to calmly round the keeper and make no mistake tapping into an empty net.
Casuals will now host Wingate and Finchley in the 3rd Qualifying Round on Saturday 2nd October.
“We’re doing a lot of things right,” said Manager James Bracken after the match. “We’re getting up to where we should be now. It’s great. There’s a collective spirit here too. We’ve had one lad come in to the side tonight after not playing for a few weeks and picks up a man-of-the-match award. It just shows the work that all of the lads are putting in, just to get into the side.
“Am I enjoying it? Yes! I enjoy winning football matches. It doesn’t matter to me if it’s the league, the FA Cup or the County Cups. I’m buzzing if I win any of them. I like winning. It’s a habit which I want to keep up because I don’t enjoy losing.
And thoughts turned to Wingate and Finchley in the next round. “If we play like we played against Wingate in the first half a few weeks ago, we’ll be confident of winning. We were 2-0 up at half time and missed a one-on-one to make it game over. Second half though, they changed it up and we never really got at them and ended in a 2-2 draw. But if we don’t make the errors that we did in that second half, we’ll be fine. The most pleasing aspect of the past few games is we’re learning the lessons of our mistakes. There are lessons in every game. We don’t brush the negatives under the carpet even if we win. The players aren’t making the same mistake twice. That’s all I can ask. Every time we’ve done something wrong, we’ve addressed it and we don’t seem to tread that same road.
“We’ve learnt from that Wingate game since. That was evident in tonight’s performance. We kept another clean sheet, we kept going until we got three. We probably should’ve got to three earlier with the chances that we had. But we didn’t stop! We had to ride them coming onto us in the second half but we dealt with that, got back on the front foot and won it from there.
“So of course we can beat Wingate come next week. But they’ll look at the second half back when we played them and think they can beat us. Which they can if we don’t do things right.”
Emirates FA Cup 2nd Qualifying Round Replay
Tuesday 21st September 2021
Report: Stuart Tree. Photos: Andy Nunn (photos here)
Corinthian-Casuals cruised into the Third Qualifying Round of the Emirates FA Cup following a convincing 3-0 victory over Leatherhead on Tuesday night.
Goals from Kieron Cadogan, Elliott Bolton and Warren Mfula extended Casuals unbeaten run to six games and a steadfast defence claimed their fourth clean sheet on the bounce.
Following the 0-0 at Fetcham Grove on Saturday, both sides had to go at it again to decide who’d host Wingate and Finchley in the next round. Making just one change (Ricardo Thompson slotting into the midfield), the pace was noticeably quicker than seen at the weekend. There was intent from both sides to take the game to their opponents but it was Corinth who struck the first blow. Kieron Cadogan gave Manny Agboola little chance to stop his 25 yard effort and King George’s erupted.
Casuals remained on top for the majority of the half, and all that was missing was the second goal. Mfula and Bolton both went close. It got worse for Leatherhead when Agboola suffered an injury just before half time. Substitute keeper Jacob Bennett replaced the stricken stopper during the break.
Leatherhead were still in this contest and with a slender 1-0 lead, could just take one chance to level the scores. In a mad minute, it could’ve swung either way. Bolton intercepted a poor clearance from Bennett, firing off a decent attempt. Bennett saved only to parry it to Mfula – who somehow hit the post when all but a tap-in was required. Leatherhead broke and came close to scoring themselves bar a good save from Captain Danny Bracken.
The key moment saw Jack Tucker – excellent all evening clear one off the line from Leatherhead. Had that gone in, we’d have had a different game for sure. Fine margins. But Casuals effectively killed off the tie with just over ten minutes remaining when Bolton snatched his first goal for the club converting a cross with his downward header.
It was wrapped up on the stroke of ninety minutes when a fierce Cadogan shot was fumbled by Bennett, allowing Mfula to calmly round the keeper and make no mistake tapping into an empty net.
Casuals will now host Wingate and Finchley in the 3rd Qualifying Round on Saturday 2nd October.
“We’re doing a lot of things right,” said Manager James Bracken after the match. “We’re getting up to where we should be now. It’s great. There’s a collective spirit here too. We’ve had one lad come in to the side tonight after not playing for a few weeks and picks up a man-of-the-match award. It just shows the work that all of the lads are putting in, just to get into the side.
“Am I enjoying it? Yes! I enjoy winning football matches. It doesn’t matter to me if it’s the league, the FA Cup or the County Cups. I’m buzzing if I win any of them. I like winning. It’s a habit which I want to keep up because I don’t enjoy losing.
And thoughts turned to Wingate and Finchley in the next round. “If we play like we played against Wingate in the first half a few weeks ago, we’ll be confident of winning. We were 2-0 up at half time and missed a one-on-one to make it game over. Second half though, they changed it up and we never really got at them and ended in a 2-2 draw. But if we don’t make the errors that we did in that second half, we’ll be fine. The most pleasing aspect of the past few games is we’re learning the lessons of our mistakes. There are lessons in every game. We don’t brush the negatives under the carpet even if we win. The players aren’t making the same mistake twice. That’s all I can ask. Every time we’ve done something wrong, we’ve addressed it and we don’t seem to tread that same road.
“We’ve learnt from that Wingate game since. That was evident in tonight’s performance. We kept another clean sheet, we kept going until we got three. We probably should’ve got to three earlier with the chances that we had. But we didn’t stop! We had to ride them coming onto us in the second half but we dealt with that, got back on the front foot and won it from there.
“So of course we can beat Wingate come next week. But they’ll look at the second half back when we played them and think they can beat us. Which they can if we don’t do things right.”
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