Stratford Town Youth begin cup defence in spectacular style
STRATFORD Town Youth began their defence of the MFYL League Cup in sensational fashion with an 8-1 thrashing of Cheltenham Town at the DCS on Thursday evening, writes Bryan Hale.
Town’s squad included nine under-16s, and the more experienced and streetwise Cheltenham side were simply swept away by their energy and enthusiasm with Town effectively having the game won after going three up in the opening 20 minutes.
The Robins were given no time to settle as Town surged forward straight from the kick-off.
In only the second minute, Harry Hartin fired narrowly over and they took the lead in just the sixth minute when George Kirby’s left wing corner was headed in at the back post by Sam Sayer.
The lead was then doubled five minutes later when Kirby’s free-kick from the opposite flank was flicked on by Jamie Ford for leading scorer Dylan Parker to power his header beyond the Robins' keeper Josh Rogers.
With Cheltenham clearly reeling, Kirby then had a fiercely-struck left footer well held by Rogers before Town went further ahead in the 20th minute.
Parker won the ball halfway inside the Cheltenham half and powered his way past a couple of defenders to coolly slot it past the advancing Rogers.
Town continued to pile on the pressure and soon after Parker broke down the left to send over a cross which was met by Ben Couki with a first-time volley which brought another smart save from Rogers.
But on 32 minutes, Cheltenham surprisingly pulled one back when Town couldn’t deal properly with a long ball pumped down the middle and Josh Bennai capitalised on the confusion to walk the ball into the net.
That gave the Robins a glimmer of hope and for the last ten minutes of the first half and the first ten of the second they enjoyed their best spell of the match.
But Town keeper Scott Martin kept out a decent attempt from Bennai and Town recovered their earlier control to put the result beyond doubt with two goals in two minutes either side of the hour mark.
Firstly, James Pomeroy headed in Town’s fourth and then Parker burst through down the right to complete his hat-trick by drilling the ball unerringly past Rogers into the far corner.
It was his 18th goal of the season and the quality of the finish certainly impressed the watching first-team boss Carl Adams.
It then got even worse for Cheltenham when one of their players was sent off after reacting petulantly to being booked for a nasty challenge and from then on it was all Town.
Pomeroy added his second and Town’s sixth on 72 minutes, and in the last four minutes George Dawson made it seven with a thunderous effort into the top corner from 20 yards out followed by Jordan White netting from close range to bring Cheltenham’s misery to an end and send Town soaring into the next round.
