It had all started so well. Drove out to Shrewton for a 7.30 kick off but got caught up in traffic and arrived at the ground at 7.35 only to find the teams were still warming up.
It turned out that the kick off had been put back to 7.45 so I started to flick through the free programme that was included in the 4 pounds admission. I was confused at first as the previous match report dated back to December 30th but on turning to the centre pages, it turned out that the game had originally been scheduled for January but had been postponed.
When the game finally kicked off, Sherborne had the best of the early chances. The best of these chances came from a superb cross from the right that eluded the defence and found the head of a striker a yard from goal. Unfortunately for them, the header flew wide when the keeper would have had trouble in keeping out anything that had been on target. Shrewton had a similar chance from a freekick from just outside the penalty area. The shot was well saved by the keeper but the ball spilled out of his hands. A Shrewton striker followed up and managed to tap the ball towards goal from a tight angle - just putting it wide which allowed Sherborne to clear their lines.
There were some early signs that the players didn't have much respect for the referee - at one stage Sherborne had a corner but their goalkeeper needed some treatment and the trainer was on the pitch at the other end. The referee ran from one end of the pitch to supervise this, leading one Sherborne player to quip,"don't go down there Ref, you'll never make it back again". When the corner was finally taken, another free header for Sherborne ended up going just wide.
Shrewton had another good chance when the ball bounced over a defender's head, allowing the striker to control the ball but his shot from the edge of the box ended up going wide. A minute later and it was a Sherborne striker who played the ball over a Shrewton defender's head - only for the shot to go wide. There was a strong wind blowing towards the Shrewton goal and several shots ended up blazing over the bar, not helped by the pitch also sloping up towards the goal.
Sherborne hadn't been helped by the referee during the first half an hour as he didn't play advantages when they were in good positions following a foul. However on 35 minutes he awarded them a penalty when a Shrewton player backed into one of the Sherborne players in the area. There were some strong verbals, especially from the goalkeeper and one of the defenders was booked.
When the penalty was finally taken, the strong shot to the left bounced back off the post and spun out towards the opposite side of the penalty area to a Sherborne player who followed up by smashing the ball into the net. There was a small scuffle with the celebrations which the referee defused. However there was now some bad feeling between the teams which soon escalated.
A couple of minutes after the restart, a Shrewton player was fouled and looked to have injured his leg. The game carried on but a Sherborne player laughed loudly and shouted that it served him right. As the ball reached the opposite wing, a strong tackle came in on a Sherborne player by the Shrewton player who had been booked. As it was right in front of the referee there was no surprise that the player received a second booking and was sent off.
The player took some time to walk off the pitch and it appears that something was said to the referee as he blew up and he and his assistants left the pitch (one of the Sherborne players shouted across the pitch that the referee had been threatened by a Shrewton player). Everyone seemed to be confused as to what would happen and there was some hope that the referee would change his mind. There was an assessor there who went in to talk to the referee with the managers. I had been updating Alan on events and gave him a call as trying to explain this in a quick text would have been a bit difficult. A couple of minutes after we finished chatting, one of the managers came out and called the teams in - that was that for the evening.
So for the first time in my 30 years of watching football, a game was abandoned due to the behaviour of the players. Hopefully the last time too!
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