Rochester United booked their place in the third round of the SCEFL Challenge Cup after beating Lordswood on penalties.

Goals from Bobby Parker and Callum Coombs for Lordswood, Perez Goumou and Jack Bray goals for Rochester made sure the game finished at 2-2 which penalties would decide the winner.

Football always seems better under the lights and the opening couple of minutes will be a moment to forget for the man in the middle. After a bright start for Rochester with a lovely ball in from Ben Wyness sadly the target for the cross was unfortunately the Lordswood goalkeeper.

The referee had to halt the game because he injured his calf, hopefully it’s not too serious. So one of the linesmen took charge of the game and the original referee went onto be the linesman, don’t often see that in football.

Once the game restarted the game was dominated by both midfields with very little getting through. Former Spartan and current Lordswood attacker Luke Adams tried his luck from range but his effort went wide. Rochester had a chance, a great driven cross from Luke Wilkins, sadly no one was on the end of it.

For before the twentieth minute The Spartans left back Dan Lott tries curling an effort on goal the keeper caught it but only after spilling the initial attempted catch. Rochester were having more of the possession but Lordswood were always going to be dangerous on the counter attack.

Just on the stroke of half time Lordswood took the lead, Bobby Parker got the final touch of a Harvey Welford shot on goal. With Bobby’s touch the ball trickled past Swift in goal. Just after the restart the referee blew the half time whistle.

1-0 to Lordswood at HT.

Within ten minutes of the restart and Lordswood went down to 10 men. Defender Alfie Clark received his marching orders after a late tackle on Rochester’s Tom Loynes. With the visitors now having a slight advantage despite being 1-0 down, they had plenty of the ball trying to break Lordswood down.

The home side switched to a 5-3-1 formation to try and stop Rochester getting back into the game. Well, on the 66th minute Rochester United equalised a ball in from Ben Wyness fell to Perez Goumou and he tapped home from about 3 yards.

Despite having a man advantage Rochester went 2-1 down. Rochester had plenty of the ball but always susceptible to the odd counter attack. This time around this counter attack worked for Lordswood.  

A route one kick from the Lordswood goalie was flicked on by Harvey Welford with that flick it took many of the Rochester centre backs out the game, the ball fell to Callum Coombs and placed the ball past Swift. It got worse for the visitors as captain for this evening’s game Connor Watson was shown a second yellow for a foul, so the game now had 10 players each.

The game was slowly disappearing for Rochester until Jack Bray nodded home with two minutes of normal time to go. A lovely ball in from a Luis Dos Santos corner found an unmarked Jack Bray who rose highest to nod home into the top corner. Probably a fair result for this Medway derby, so with this it brings penalties as the game ended 2-2.

Full time Lordswood 2-2 Rochester United.

Penalties to follow.

After an array of good penalties with a penalty that cleared the Medway towns and a couple of great saves from the post and Chris Swift Rochester Utd win 5-4  on penalties.

Attendance; 146

LORDSWOOD

Hall, Miles, Tristram, Clark, Plummer (C), Kimberley, Coombs, Parker, Welford, Adams, Sterling.

Subs: Manning, Carter, llloyd, Adedeji, Murray.

ROCHESTER UNITED

Swift, Wyness, Lott, Watson (C), Whitaker, Loynes, Wilkins,Brown,Freeman, Thomson, Goumou.

Subs: Bray, Currie, Toon, Dos Santos, Dance.

Photos supplied by Sophie Barnes