Badshot Lea 0, Hayes & Yeading 4

BADSHOT Lea’s FA Cup dreams may be over for another year, but the club’s journey is anything but.

Plucky Lea were finally undone by a professional performance by a solid Hayes & Yeading side, who ply their trade in step three, as they bowed out of the competition at the second qualifying round stage at Westfield Lane last Saturday.

But the Baggies’ magical cup adventure, which took in four rounds and five matches, and earned the club more than £12,000 in prize money, ticked another box for Lea bosses Gavin Smith and Dave Ford, who are in their first full season in charge having taken over the reins of the then struggling club at the end of December last year.

“Our aim at the beginning of the season, first and foremost, was to get people to do things properly as in Tuesday, Thursday, Saturday, and to be a squad, not just individuals – we’ve done that – and to have a good cup run and get knocked out by a team at a higher level, not by someone at our level,” said Smith.

“That was our aim, to have a good cup run and make a bit of money for the club. We didn’t want to go out on Saturday, we believed we had another game in us. But fair play to them, they didn’t take us lightly and they put us to the sword in the end.”

Two goals in each half left Lea agonisingly short of matching their best run in the FA Cup, but Smith knows such games are a big learning curve and is keen to pit his wits against the bigger boys again in future.

“In all honesty, when you play teams like that you would probably win three times out of ten. You’re not going to win every game against a team at that level. If we did it again next year we would be better prepared and we might relax a little bit.

“The lads we sent on at the end, Mac (Ford) and Drew (Matthews), because we were losing it was a good time to go on. The game had gone, we were never going to win and they were relaxed, and they actually performed really well.

“We were slightly disappointed because we didn’t play as well as we could have done. We let things affect us. We started well and we let the goal affect us, and moments in the game affected us.

“The first goal was a soft goal after playing so well early on and being camped in their half. We were looking good and the goal knocked us a little bit.”

That opening goal came in the ninth minute when Dejon Noel Williams’ precise ball into the box was converted by Lyle Della-Verde and Hayes & Yeading, who play in Southern League Premier Division South, doubled their lead in fortuitous circumstances when Lea keeper Kallum Lunn, who was superb all afternoon, made a fine save to beat out Toby Little’s fierce free kick only to see the ball ricochet into the path of James Clark who made no mistake from close range.

In between those goals, the busy Nick Medcraft could only look on in dismay as Hayes keeper Mark Childs tipped his goalbound effort round the post.

Then came controversy as Meshach Williams was played through with only last man Keano Robinson for company, only for the big centre half to tug his shirt repeatedly in full view of referee Alex Blake as he attempted to wrestle free and bear down on goal, but the official mystifyingly allowed play to continue.

“Shaq did the right thing,” said Smith. “He thought he could score so he stayed on his feet but the guy was pulling his shirt for a good ten yards and you’re thinking ‘go on, ref, do something’. If Shaq goes down there the lad gets sent off, but you don’t want your players to have to dive on the floor to make a difference.

“It’s not that we didn’t respect them, they’ve obviously got good players, but we felt that we could do well and we never looked discouraged. We believed in what we can do. I’m pleased that we did that. We could have scored, they could have scored more goals, we didn’t just settle for a 1-0 defeat.

“Their keeper has made some good saves and I’m pleased that we had a go but we could have done better. If key moments in the game had gone our way it could have been different.”

Tomorrow, Lea return to Combined Counties League action against bottom side Banstead Athletic at Westfield Lane (kick-off 3pm) having drifted down the table because of a long period without playing league matches.

“A little bit of excitement goes when you get knocked out of the FA Cup, but getting knocked out by a team two leagues higher shouldn’t dent our confidence.

“You can’t underestimate anyone, a team is always capable of beating you on the day, but if we turn up we can beat anyone at our level.

“Teams have played more games than us now in the league so we’ve got a bit of catching up to do and it’s annoying looking at the table and seeing all those teams above us because you want the points rather than the games in hand.”