Birmingham over 50’s Regional Final 30/9/16

A night of celebration ensued as Birmingham over 50’s reached the Central Regional Final to take on Leicester later this month, injury problems and unavailability had left The Blues short of key players, and in the warm up prior to kick off, Andrew Struthers gave Manager Paul Murtagh a further scare with a back spasm.

 

Visitors to Beechcroft , Hereford and Kettering had looked confident and the first fixture between Birmingham and Hereford proved to be a tight affair in the first half, on the stroke of half time, Struthers showing no signs of the earlier injury scare  was running the game from midfield and then scored a superb individual effort to put Birmingham ahead. Shortly into the second half, Dave Wright who had been unusually quiet struck an opportunistic effort which evaded the Hereford keeper, from then on there was only one winner, David Castle and Shay Flaherty kept Hereford at bay, with Kev Evans playing the defensive midfield role excellently.

 

The second game of the mini tournament saw Hereford and Kettering play out and end to end 3-3 draw, which meant Birmingham only had to draw to progress to the last eight of the National Finals.

 

Kettering had no answer to Birminghams well blended individual talents as they were beaten 4-0 with some excellent finishing by Wright (3) and Struthers (1) as they totally dominated the Northants outfit. Gareth Edwards came close at the end with a brilliant strike which deserved a goal and other replacement Ian Gough held up play to continually allow Wright and Struthers so much freedom.

 

                        P   Pts

 

Birmingham  2       6

Herford          2       1

Kettering       2       1

 

 

 

Leicester await Birmingham in the Central Final, the winner progessing to the the National Final to be held on 30th October.

 

Manager Paul Murtagh was delighted with the performance he said, “ I never felt we were in danger, we were tight at the back and organised and with Dave (Wright ) and Andy we are always going to score goals, Our keeper Rob had one shot to save all night. “