Young Yellows Beaten By Park Vale

A young Sutton United side exited the Surrey Senior Cup at first hurdle on Tuesday night, but can be proud of their performance and energy levels shown throughout.

It was a lively performance that troubled the more experienced home defenders, and McKend was denied early on by an offside flag when it had originally seemed the young striker was onside when the ball was played. Minutes later however the flag stayed down at the other end as Jordan got through on goal, and finished calmly to put the home side in front. Raynes Park keeper Ed Cornwell made a great stop from a header inside the box, and may have been slightly disappointed when the offside flag went up meaning it wouldn’t have counted anyway. There was another good opportunity for Sutton as a ball was pulled back across the box, but nobody in a white shirt arrived to put it in. Raynes Park created chances too, Tom Harland-Goddard perhaps having the best of them but sending his shot wide.

It didn’t take the young U’s side long to equalise in the second half, with Crossley Lema making an overlapping run on the right and finishing perfectly into the bottom left hand corner of the goal. This brought the game to life somewhat and both sides went for the win. When Harland-Goddard curled an effort towards the top corner from the edge of the box it looked for all the world that Park Vale had found the goal, but Justice Owusu in the Sutton net produced an impressive save to keep the scores level. This nearly paid dividends straight away as United nearly took the lead, a clever flick from McKend putting Leon Dadey in, but he shot just wide under pressure. With neither side able to get another goal the game went to penalties with the first 2 penalties both being saved. These misses wouldn’t set a trend however as the next penalties were all scored, giving Raynes Park Vale a 4-3 lead going into the U’s final penalty. Palmire Cabo-Verde, suffering from the effects of nerves, put that penalty over the bar meaning it was the Combined Counties side who will advance through to the next round

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