Herts FA Centenary Senior Trophy Round Two
Buntingford Town 3 London Lions 6
London Lions holders of the Herts Centenary Trophy set up a tasty third round fixture with London Colney after beating Buntingford Town 6-3 in round two.
Two goals from captain Dean Nyman and one apiece from David Soutar, Ricky Engleman, Josh Kennet and substitute player-manager Tony Gold completed a good afternoon's work.
With Gold down to the bare bones, keeper Ziggy Lichman made a welcome return between the sticks in the absence of Mario Canolli, while young 16-year-old Michael Kenley started his first ever game for the first team up front.
Buntingford's intentions were clear from the outset, getting 11 men behind the ball with a view to frustrating their opponents. It was a tactic that worked for 25 minutes before Nyman opened the scoring with a terrific finish.
Lions continued to play a patient passing game and doubled their lead after great work from Adam Myeroff carved out a chance for Soutar to tap home after Stephen Harvey in the home goal spilled the ball.
Shortly after, Engleman made it 3-0, with Lions going in at the break in a comfortable position.
It was obvious that Buntingford couldn't afford to sit back for the remaining 45 minutes and equally Lions had to make sure their was no way back if that tactic changed.
On 60 minutes, Lions made it 4-0 following a fantastic strike from Kennet, but then two goalkeeping howlers in the space of 10 minutes from Lichman suddenly put a different slant on proceedings.
With 20 minutes remaining, Gold replaced Glynne who had a date with Wembley and within five minutes of being on the pitch, he made it 5-2. Great work from young Kenley saw a square ball pulled back to Gold who from 18 yards smashed the ball home into the roof of the net.
Buntingford then benefitted from another goalkeeping mistake to pull it back to 5-3, before Nyman finally killed the game off four minutes from time with another instinctive finish.
Summing up his team's performance, Gold said: "We are the proud holders of this trophy and want to make sure we defend it with pride.
"We will of course face tougher challenges and none more so then the leaders of our league London Colney in the next round. But today it was great to see another good performance and product of Lions youth academy get some unequivocal experience.
"Today was about coming here and putting in the right performance, getting the right result and getting through to the next round all three objectives executed, job done."
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