Saturday 26th August 2006 – Polymac Services Midland Football Alliance

Racing Club Warwick 1 Rocester 1

For the second time inside a week Nick Ward was on hand to head a last-gasp equaliser for rapidly improving Rocester.

This one, in the 87th minute, wasn’t quite as late as his midweek leveller against Market Drayton, but it was completely deserved and it earned another point to keep Manager Damian Grocott smiling. “That’s just one defeat in our opening five games.” He pointed out afterwards.

Grocott wasn’t so happy about the match referee, Mr J. Harris of Redditch, who, it must be said, had an awful match.

“It’s just not good enough, we haven’t had one decent referee yet. He allowed some things to go on that have no place on a football pitch, then he disallowed a perfectly good goal and only he knows why.”

The under-fire official had already incensed the Rocester contingent by awarding the home side a series of free kicks for innocuous challenges before he failed to show even a yellow card to Racing’s Matt Graham for a crunching late tackle on Adam Baum, which resulted in the striker being stretchered off in the 34th minute with a foot injury.

Without a recognised forward on the bench Grocott reshuffled his pack by pushing Ward into the forward line alongside Mark Ruddock, while substitute Mick Ede settled into the midfield role vacated by Ward.

After an evenly contested first half it was Rocester who took the initiative after the break. A prolonged spell of pressure saw Wayne Johnson head a Kevin Millward cross narrowly over the bar, and Ward was also off-target after latching on to Ruddock’s flick.

Another heavy challenge, this one by Ben Clay on Wayne Johnson, went unpunished by the referee, and soon after play had restarted it was Clay who forced his way into the Rocester area to give his side a 70th minute lead with a low shot into the bottom left corner.

Within three minutes Rocester thought they had equalised after Ruddock’s powerful far-post header from Richard Owen’s free kick flew into the net, but as the players celebrated Mr Harris called them back and, to the astonishment of both teams, awarded a free kick for pushing. To add salt to the wound he then showed a yellow card to Ruddock for his protestations.

Still Rocester kept their forward momentum, but were almost caught out by the powerful running of Ubong Umotong who was a constant threat. The superbly named striker forced Paul Wood into two smart saves on the break.

With time running out, the introduction of substitute Marc Hubbard proved decisive as Rocester searched for a breakthrough. Hubbard’s cross from the left found Ward in space, and he carefully looped his header over Tom Farmer in the home goal from ten yards out. 

Racing Club: Farmer; R.Allen; Newland; Graham; Constable; S.Hanney; Hayden (Judge 75); Clay; Umotong (Hammersley 82); J.Hanney; MacVarish. Subs not used: Reynolds; Balcarres; Hunt.

Rocester: Wood; P.Johnson; C.Allen; Owen; Brown; W.Johnson; Millward; Ward; Ruddock; Baum (M.Ede 34); Caswell (Hubbard 83). Subs not used: Braithwaite; P.Ede.

Cautions: Ruddock (Rocester)

Referee: Mr. J. Harris (Redditch)

Attendance: 105