Sturminster Marshall 1  Cranborne 2

Paul Maitland, Ryan Mole, Craig MacLeod, Dan Haysom, Lloyd Bird, Sam Mason, Phil Sweetland, Graham Duff, Rob Morley, Mark Henson, Dan Lane, Matt Saunders, Fedja Selimovic, Matt Lambert

Stur scorer:  Fedja Selimovic.

Stur star man:  Dan Haysom

In very windy conditions at Churchill Close both teams found it difficult to control the ball and this ultimately led to a very scrappy game.

The referee booked a Cranborne player after about five minutes and the yellow card was to make a regular appearance during the course of the game. A Cranborne defender went straight through Mark Henson from behind and kicked him straight up in the air. The ref, much to the bemusement of all present, awarded a free kick to Cranborne and waved a card in the general direction of the incident. It took a while for the disbelieving onlookers to realise that it was actually Henson who had been booked – this particular onlooker still finds it difficult to believe.

Stur had the strong wind at their backs in the first half and began to dominate territorially. However, that territorial advantage did not produce a goal. Four gilt edged chances went begging before the break and so the game remained goalless as the sides left the pitch for the half time break.

The opening goal was bizarre. On the hour mark, Craig MacLeod hit a long back pass to his goalkeeper. The wind seemed to catch the ball and when it bounced it seemed to shoot forward and past Paul Maitland and into the back of the net. Stur were still trying to recover their composure when Cranborne scored their second goal a few minutes after the first. A corner was only half cleared and Graham Antell stabbed the ball home.

Stur seemed to wake up after this and began to push forward in an attempt to rescue something from the game. Substitute Fedja Selimovic looked lively and five minutes from time scored a tremendous individual goal to reduce the arrears. Picking the ball up wide on the left he advanced into the box and went past three defenders before placing the ball past the Cranborne keeper. Unfortunately for Stur it was too little, too late.