Boreham Wood 1 Rushden & Diamonds 0

Match Report courtesy of Unofficial Rushden & Diamonds Website (1997-2001)

FA Cup 4 Qualifying Round Replay

28.10.97 – Meadow Park

Diamonds Team : Smith, Wooding, Cramman, Mison, Rodwell, Whyte, Kelly, Butterworth, Foster, Collins, Underwood, Subs: Fuff, Rawle and Capone.

Goal scorers and time of goals: RDFC : Nil
Webmaster Diamonds Man of the Match :
Match Report :

Rushden & Diamonds were knocked out of the FA Cup by Isthmian League’s Boreham Wood last night.

Substitute Paul Shaw sent the under par Diamonds crashing out in the 116th minute, just as it was thought that a penalty shoot-out was going to take place.

Boreham Wood deserved their win and only fine goal-keeping by Mark Smith saved Diamonds from a heavier defeat. Diamonds gave away possession much too often, and could not cope with the constant harassing that Boreham Wood provided.

Tony Samuels played havoc with the Diamonds defence, and made them look flat-footed, and his trickery was even greater than his display last Saturday. Four times Mark Smith denied him from scoring after going around the three centre backs Whyte, Rodwell and Kelly.

Brian Talbot was naturally disappointed with being knocked out of the FA Cup so near to full time, but he said he could not complain about the effort of the Diamond players. Both wing backs Wooding and Underwood looked very uncomfortable, and it is possible that Brian may have to look outside the club if they cannot settle into this style of play.

Diamonds man of the match Mark Smith only made one mistake, and fortunately this did not lead to a goal against us, as Warren Kelly cleared the Samuels header off the line. However he really made up for this error.

Constantly in the second half Diamonds gave away the ball to their opponents, but as both sides battled all the way for a result, it was no surprise that the game went into extra time. It would have been exciting to see the game settled by penalties, and also to see our quality of penalty taking, however substitute Shaw had other ideas and scored just with 4 minutes to the end of the extra time period.

Once again as was experienced last Saturday Diamonds chances were missed. Unfortunately Capone missed with goal-keeper out of position.