Red cards key to exit

IT WAS hardly surprising the chance of club coffers being swelled by £6,000 was lost when United were forced to play 100 minutes of their two FA Cup first qualifying round tie a man short, writes Mervyn Collins.

When Neil O'Sullivan was dismissed for stamping 20 minutes into Tuesday night's replay, the Robins were already a goal behind but they gave it their best shot and could have taken the game to extra-time had Richard Ball's effort seven minutes into stoppage-time not flashed the wrong side of an upright.

Dave Busst labelled the three officials in Saturday's original clash as "the three of the worst that he had ever seen at this level". The Evesham boss was just as harsh towards the men in black for the replay who again played a huge part in the end result.

One of Mr Grattan's assistants judged that a lob from Chris Bale had crossed the line despite being in no position to say emphatically that Dave Adey's weak punch should be punished by the follow-up strike.

Indiscretion

Five minutes later, the Solihull referee surely can't have been wrong to red card the full back whose alleged indiscretion happened right in front of the man in black, who was again in a perfect position to award a penalty as half-time appro-ached when a Tiverton defender appeared to handle in the penalty area.

Enough said about the officials on a night when indiscipline and wayward finishing was the root cause of Evesham's demise.

While O'Sullivan was downright stupid, Richard Ball and Jermaine Clarke were wholly wasteful. However, the latter was again the pick of the home side and, judging by his two games against the Devon outfit, he is back to his bustling best although that quality in the box is still lacking.

Ball has that knack of finding the net from inside the area but he still managed to miss three clearcut chances. The first after 14 minutes saw him race clear only for him to shot too much of the ball to Mark Ovendale who halted the striker in his tracks.

The Tiverton goalkeeper then produced the save of the night to turn over Ball's left foot piledriver that had goal written all over it but Ovendale could only watch with relief as the Evesham striker's last-gasp shot flashed a foot wide when really he should have hit the target.

Nine minutes earlier, Ball miscued a cross from substitute Jae Martin that fell kindly for Clarke who ballooned his effort from 12 yards into the car park.

Ovendale had touched over an earlier effort from Clarke who caused the Town defence no end of problems, while Steve Duncan headed the resulting flag-kick narrowly over the crossbar.

Adey had been virtually redundant at the other end but, when called upon as the hosts pushed men forward, the goalkeeper more than made up for his earlier mistake.

He superbly palmed over Shaun Goff's 30-yarder in the 80th minute, did even better to tip over Stewart Yetton's shot six minutes later and then blocked another Goff strike as stoppage-time approached.

Substitute Jamie Bailey's stinging shot three minutes from time again gave the last line the chance to shine on a night when the Robins will rue one moment of madness that led to a costly exit from this season's premier knockout competition.