Wednesday 17th August
FA Youth Cup Extra Preliminary Round
Croydon FC 3 Cray Valley PM 2
Goalscorers: 36’ Lorenzo Duncan, 49’ Michael Soloku, 86’ Tyrese Johnson
Line-up:
Nathan Boamah, Kwame Adjei, Khayrie Harris, Bami Ishola, Harrison Walker, Michael Bolger, Michael Soloku, Lorenzo Duncan, Joe Jamal, Peter Sequira, Kelvin De Graft
Substitutes:
Adam Ademi, Kosuke Ono, Marlon Agbolade, Kamal Smith-Phillips, Tyrese Johnson, Israel Odufuwa, Samuel Essien
Kinetic Academy Manager Matt Capon, who is also Croydon FC First Team Coach, led our youngsters to a victory in the FA Youth Cup Extra Preliminary Round against Cray Valley PM!
We got the game underway but it was Cray Valley PM who had the first major chance of the game in the 7th minute when a freekick from the edge of the box smashed off the underside of the crossbar, bouncing down on the line before eventually being cleared away. The next 20-25 minutes saw the Trams dominate possession wise with De Draft and Harris causing the opposition plenty of issues but without managing to find the back of the net. Then the breakthrough came in the 36th minute. The ball fell to Kelvin De Graft on the edge of the box whose shot was blocked by the Cray Valley defender, to shouts of handball from the trams bench. The ball came back to De Graft who knocked it on for Lorenzo Duncan to fire home into the bottom left of the net to give us the 1-0 lead going into half time.
It didn’t take long into the second half to double our lead. With 49 minutes on the clock, Michael Soloku made it 2-0 after the Cray Valley defence failed to clear the ball. Then the game turned around pretty quickly with the away side grabbing two goals in 9 minutes to make it all level at 2-2. The first goal coming courtesy of a through ball from midfield and the Cray Valley striker rounding Boamah and finding the back of the net. The second goal came from a clearance from a trams attack which allowed the Cray Valley striker to race through and bag his second of the game.
With no extra time and straight to penalties looking on the cards, Tyrese Johnson had other ideas when his left footed strike found the bottom corner of the net beating the Cray Valley goalkeeper who had pulled off an outstanding save to deny Tyrese not long before. Cue wild celebrations with Tyrese pulling off a knee slide to be joined by all of the team including the substitutes (You can see the winning goal here – https://www.instagram.com/reel/ChYANBRAwgU/). Our boys saw out the rest of the game and advance through to the next round where we will face Dartford FC away in around 2 week’s time.