Corinthian-Casuals 1 – 1 St Albans City
Emirates FA Cup Fourth Qualifying Round
Saturday 16th October 2021
Report and Photos: Stuart Tree (full set of photos here)

If you would have asked any Corinthian-Casuals fan back in August, would they take being in the hat for the First Round of the FA Cup, pending a replay to make it there, they’d have bitten your hand off for the opportunity.

The bigger picture is, Casuals have indeed made it into the First Round Proper draw – though ball 66 will state Corinthian-Casuals OR St Albans City.

With seventeen seconds left on the clock, it was exclusively James Bracken’s side that were in with the chance of a dream tie against Sunderland, Sheffield Wednesday or Accrington Stanley!

But football can be a cruel mistress when St Albans equalised with the last kick of the game. A scrappy one at that – though they’ll take it as evident in their celebrations.

St Albans Manager Ian Allinson admitted that ‘they got away with it’ and ‘they were better than us and Casuals deserved to win the game’. But that’s football. It lasts 90 (or in this case, 94) minutes.

It felt particularly cruel as the Saints had failed to muster a single shot on target in the game. But one-nil leads are precarious and anything can happen, as it did.

The first half was cagey. This report would just be filling up space trying to describe half chances and spells of possession. It was even-stevens. Both sides trying to find themselves and their opponents weaknesses.

But the second half saw Casuals come alive. This in turn got the crowd rocking, which in turn got the players going. Former Casuals cup heroes Alan Pardew and Andy Gray in attendance must’ve enjoyed the increased perkiness of the second period.

Warren Mfula had the pick of the chances for Casuals to take the lead. Kieron Cadogan played a wonderful ball through to the striker who had the keeper beaten but his shot rebounded off the upright.

Jack Strange powered a header destined for the top corner. Elliott Bolton blasted over. Jack Tucker was unlucky for his chance to be halted by the referee.

But finally the deadlock was broken on 72 minutes when Cadogan whipped in a perfect cross to find 16-year old Alfie Bendle who couldn’t miss with his head at the back post.

Time very slowly ticked down, deep into stoppage time with Casuals having comfortably cleaned up any St Albans threat. A harsh free kick was awarded 35 yards out and a tricky ball was floated into a dangerous area and the resulting melee saw substitute Dave Diedhiou clean up from just a yard out. Hearts sank as Saints were saved.

It felt like a loss. So close to confirming their spot in the First Round for the first time in 38 years, James Bracken and his side will need a replay for the FOURTH time this campaign if they are to progress. The Boss was decidedly upbeat about Casuals chances though, reminding us that his side had scored three goals in each of their three replays this season.

“Football gives you those massive highs but conversely, you get those massive disappointments too”, said Bracken after the match.

“You have to take a pragmatic approach with a balanced head because if you don’t. you’ll end up in a padded cell somewhere.

“The good times are great and you enjoy those, but you can let in a last minute goal like we did today and be down in the dumps. Of course we’re disappointed. The boys are too but we’re in the hat for the next round. You have to take the positives from that. We’re in the draw, we have a replay on Tuesday where we’ll know who we will play should we get through and hopefully serves as a bit of motivation.

“If we deliver the same levels of performance, then we’ll have every chance. Today, we were good, but no better than I would expect us to be. This is how I expect us to be in every game. I actually still find last week against Merstham harder to deal with. If we play like we have today, which is what we’ve done in many of our games this season, then we know we’re a good side. We’re not easy to create chances against, as our clean-sheets have shown and we’re scoring some goals.

“So we just need to dust ourselves down. Yeah – it’s cruel but we’ll be back again.

“My Brother will pick himself up, don’t worry. Every one of those boys in the changing room put their arms around him. Remember, he’s saved us in plenty of matches. He’s more than proved himself. You could see he was upset, but that shows the man cares. He’s got passion for this club.

“I thought the free kick leading to the equaliser was harsh. Their player has put it through our lad’s legs and just ran into him. When you put a ball though the legs, it’s clear you’re square on and you cannot get out of the way. So for that reason, I thought it was harsh.

“But I’m not here to criticise the officials. I thought they had a good game if I’m honest.

“It is what it is and all we can do is go again on Tuesday. The better, bigger pitch will suit us and we’ll use it to our advantage.
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“We have a 100% record on midweek evening matches and in every replay, we’ve scored three goals so there’s plenty of positives.”

St Albans City 1 - 1 Corinthian-Casuals
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.
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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.
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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.
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“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.”