The Burngreave/Canklow Crusaders under 18's football team went top of the league for the Christmas 2006 period and are still there by virtue of a superior goal difference.
Since the report in the December issue, we have played in 2 cup rounds in the Brian Hawley Cup, which is very prestigious at our level.
In the last round we played away to Sheffield United Junior Blades 1st team. The game got under way under bad weather conditions with an extremely muddy pitch. The decisions were going against us and two clear penalty claims not awarded by the referee who later apologised for not being up with play due to being incurred (just our luck).
We went down 1 nil after we were in charge for a 20 minute spell but fought hard to equalise through some fantastic passing out of defence and into the oppositions box where Yassar Mohammed met a pin point cross to level the score.
We went 2 – 1 down again after just before the break through a costly error in midfield, allowing a 4 v 3 against our defence which were caught out. After the restart we went 3 – 1 down by what I consider to be a bad referee decision as the ref allowed a foul to go unchallenged on our central defender which allowed the attacker an unchallenged shot at goal. To be fair Burngreave kept their spirits about them and battled on with prevailing winds against them. Despite one or two more decisions that should have gone our way we were still trying to get back at our premier side opponents and the lack of support from the referee only proved to strengthen our effort to attack Sheffield United's goal area.
We were about 10 minutes from the end of the game which seemed out of our grasp now but a great piece of individual skill by Richard Williams down the right wing saw him break past 5 players to cross for a fine finish to bring the score back to 3 – 2.
Now with 5 minutes to go we were virtually camped in Sheffield's half of the pitch and Steve Richardson Jnr (Rico) was making fools of Sheffield's midfield, time after time he was breaking away and creating shooting opportunities. On one occasion he took on several players and brushed off several fouls in one movement that allowed him to turn Sheffield's right back, on the turn he made a shot that rifled into the net and levelled at 3 – 3.
We were now literally looking at extra time which I urged the team not to accept and go all out to win the game in normal time. Several Burngreave players were now playing on injured from challenges that had gone un noticed by the ref. With only 2 minutes to go Scott Boyle rounded the entire Sheffield midfield to make a precision pass to Rico who ran the line and took on two defenders to be blocked by a third, he turned away from goal then back again and again the ball screamed past a helpless goalkeeper to make it 4 – 3 to Burngreave/Canklow.
The whistle ended the game to our jubilation which now means we play Stocksbridge Park Steels in the semi final, date yet to be set. Rico earned both man of the match and the managers award from Andy Richmond for his efforts but special and highly acclaimed praise goes out to all the team who even got a bulletin and mention in the green un for their achievement.
Report by Steve Richardson, FA Community Football Development Officer.