FA Cup Victory for Dynamos

On Saturday 2nd August Dynamos hosted Abingdon United in the FA Cup Extra Preliminary Round.
It was a cagey match with few chances created by either team. Abingdon took the lead in the first half and the score remained 1-0 to Abingdon until injury time.
In the 97th minute, Dynamos finally grabbed a late equaliser as Kenzo Konate managed to get a shot away and beat the keeper.
This meant a replay at Abingdon on Tuesday.

Dynamos manager shuffled the pack a little and picked an attacking line up for the replay.
The early exchanges saw both teams struggling to find the final pass, but the game changed in the 9th minute when an Abingdon player was upset with a challenge on him and hit out at Dynamos Captain, Dave Brown. There player saw Red immediately as the referee had little choice. Abingdon were down to 10 men for the remainder of the match.
Dynamos were seeing more of the ball but not able to break down Abingdon and then, 5 minutes before half-time, Abingdon broke through the defence and slotted the ball past George Zammit in the Dynamos goal to open the scoring. 1-0 Abingdon.

After half time Dynamos were on the front foot and pressing well but just could not find the equaliser. A couple of chances for Blaaze Lawrence went begging and Finaly Reeves also had a good chance blocked.
Paul Batchelor, the Dynamos Manager, decided to give a debut to the youngest ever player to pull on a Dynamos shirt for the 1st team his moment. Mason Leech at 16 years and 17 days old came on, another product of the ever growing pathway that Dynamos actively look to utilise.

The game entered into injury time and looked like they would fail at the first hurdle. Surely they couldn’t do the same and find an injury time equaliser. Yes they could. In the 96th minute, Dylan Stevens rifled a shot which was saved and the ball spun up to Dave Brown who happily slotted the ball home to equalise with less than 2 minutes left.

The match then went into 30 minutes of extra time where Dynamos were attacking for the majority and Abingdon doing everything they could to waste time and take it to penalties.
The 120th minute arrived and both managers were now actively choosing their penalty takers, but Dynamos had one last twist….!
With literally seconds left, Blaaze Lawrence burst down the right and squared the ball to Owen Broughton on the edge of the area. He looped a shot over the keeper, hit the bar and post and went over the line, into the goal !!! Despite some protests from Abingdon that the ball had not crossed the line, the referee (and Linesman) both agreed it had and the celebrations started. It was a good foot over the line

A few seconds after the re-start and the final whistle blew sending Dynamos into the next round of the FA Cup where they have a home tie, on Saturday 16th August, against Oldland Abbotonians (from Bristol), kick off 3pm.