Bemerton took the lead in the 2nd minute when an unmarked player received the ball on the left of the Alresford penalty area. He took it forward and then shot across the keeper and into the net.
The play was all one way traffic and in the 13th minute only the assistant's flag could prevent a second goal as the player who 'scored' had run in from an offside position. Offsides were an issue at the other end of the pitch as well. The two Alresford strikers weren't good at keeping onside according the assistant in front of us and everytime the ball was played forward one of them was given as offside. While they moaned and argued each time, they didn't seem to have the intelligence to change their runs to stay onside. This meant the half had a very stop-start feel to it.
In the 23rd minute Bemerton wasted another opportunity from a freekick. The ball was sent high into the area where it was headed down to a Bemerton player 8 yards out from goal. He leaned back as he hit a shot and instead of putting the ball in the net it flew up into the trees behind the goal. The rest of the half saw Bemerton dominate possession but neither team really took control of the game.
Before the second half, both teams brought on a substitute. The Alresford sub appeared to be tactical while the Bemerton change was enforced - one of their strikers had been tackled hard just before half time and couldn't run off his knock during the half time interval. The changes didn't seem to make much difference to the game - Bemerton continued to dominate and hit a couple of shots wide. Stuart Finlay (ex Bemerton top scorer) finally managed to stay onside in the 50th minute but as he was about to shoot a great sliding tackle came in from the side and cleared the ball.
As the game progressed Alresford started to create more chances around the area. One cross almost found the top corner and a couple of shots went wide. Bemerton had to make another change due to injury but weren't sitting back on their lead. In the 77th minute they almost added a second goal. The ball was crossed from the right at the second attempt and found a Bemerton player who leapt into the air and headed the ball past the keeper from inside the 6 yard line. The ball bounced down off the crossbar but didn't cross the line and was scrambled clear.
This miss was to prove costly. In the 90th minute and for the first time in the game Finlay was left unmarked in the box. A long ball was played to the left wing and then crossed for Finlay to head past the Bemerton keeper. This seemed to rattle Bemerton and they were lucky that the visitors didn't win the game in the last minute of injury time. Finlay was played in and just had the keeper to beat but there wasn't time to adjust his position for a shot before the keeper came out and the opportunist pass came off the keeper for a corner.
The equaliser took the game into extra time and I commented to Andy that the last time I had seen an extra time goal was at Willand Rovers last season when Bemerton had lost in the final minutes. Alresford were unlucky not to score right at the start of extra time with a shot from an acute angle that came back off the post.
That was the only excitement until the 110th minute when there was a flare up by the Bemerton dugout. An Alresford player wasn't happy at the time it took to get the ball back and started a shoving contest that soon escalated. After it calmed down, he was booked and a Bemerton coach was asked to leave the dugout. Both teams created half chances but the game fizzled out and finished a draw, with a replay during the next week at Alresford.
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