Ruff Justice

Try as it might, the League Cup cannot seem to conjure up the atmosphere of League games and this preliminary round tie was a typical gritty encounter where players on both sides grabbed their chance to show their management what they can do and produced plenty of enthusiasm, endeavour and no little skill, but not much in the way of goalmouth excitement. In the end, the crowd were spared the lottery of a penalty shoot-out by an in-game spot kick from Charlie Ruff that sent Kings deservedly into the next round. Manager Dean Barker brought in Harry Crawford, Charlie Pattison and Kane Farrell, resting Roddy Collins, Lloyd Doyley and Gary Connolly and the visitors made the early running with a sublime Kane Farrell forward ball giving Harry Crawford an opportunity on his first start, but keeper James Connell responded with a good block, while a powerful Callum Adebiyi header was ruled offside. Biggleswade were producing some good, attacking, interpassing football, but Kings defence was holding firm, limiting them to a Sam Kelly effort wide of the post and an Alex Marsh twenty five yarder punched away by Melvin Minter. The second half continued in the same vein with Tom Coles’ fierce shot turned round by Minter and a searing run and cross by Kane Farrell receiving no takers in the box. Eoin McKeown and Mitchell Weiss nearly combined to break the deadlock on the hour, but the home side were upping the pace of the game and a break and shot from the livewire Alex Marsh produced a spectacular flying save from Minter. With experts in the crowd confirming that there was to be no extra time but straight to penalties in the event of a draw, a lofted through ball resulted in Eoin McKeown getting goal-side of Luke Oswick and the defender’s clumsy challenge gave the referee little option but to point to the spot. It was to be nearly three minutes before the kick was taken, as the official made a production of booking the unfortunate Oswick, but Charlie Ruff showed little sign of nerves as he finally drilled the ball into the corner for his second conversion in the space of three days. The young Biggleswade side put plenty of effort into searching for an equaliser, but an assured Kings Langley looked comfortable in seeing the game out to its conclusion.