Peterborough Northern Star 3 Dunston UTS 4 aet
Always nice to have a ground within reasonably easy reach that I haven't visited before for the Vase quarter finals.
The train journey to Peterborough passed without incident and I had 90 mins to find the ground. The hardest part was finding my way over the main road after exiting the station. After standing scratching my head for a couple of minutes, I suddenly noticed a covered footbridge about 200 yards away - Doh!!
I decided to walk to the ground and I'm not sure that I took the most direct route. But I always new where I was according to the map I had printed off, it would have helped however if Peterborough council could be bothered to put up road names to actually confirm where you are walking. It was quite a long walk though and took me about 45 mins. I have to say that Peterborough is not the nicest of areas. Youths hanging around every 100 yards or so, gangs of hoodies everywhere, people yelling obscenities from cars and you take your life in your hands every time to try to cross a road. Can't say I'll be any hurry to return.
The ground is quite neat when you enter although fairly basic. Two small covered seating areas on the far side. Strangely, fans stood in front of the far seated area during the came so most people under the cover also stood up. I felt a bit sorry for a couple of old timers sitting there as they couldn't have been able to see too much. There is also a small covered area on the near side and the quite large pitch is also railed off.
A red kite hovered overhead on my arrival which is always a pleasant sight.
Having had a large cooked breakfast, I wasn't too hungry. Earlier in the week, I was charged 60 pence for a two bar Kit-Kat which I considered outrageous. The £1 for a good pile of chips at the ground was more than good value.
The £6 admission including a good programme was also very fair value.
A large number of Dunston fans were at the game, some of whom had made a weekend of their trip. They were all in good humour, were very good company and extremely sporting towards the opposition whenever they did anything well. The whole came was played in a competitive but fair spirit which was a credit to both teams, I don't remember a bad tackle.
The game got off to a very slow start with seemingly nothing but throw-in's for the first ten minutes although the strong wind did make things difficult for the fans. Peterborough scored after 19 mins and Dunston equalised 10 mins later. The rest of the 90 mins was fairly mundane, Dunston had the better of the second half but italways looked like ending in a draw.
I didn't expect much from extra time & certainly didn't expect the drama that unfolded. Peterborough scored just a minute in only for Dunston to equalise again just before the break. Dunston then took the lead just into the second period but this time Peterborough came straight back to equalise. Almost inevitably, there was awinner right at the death and it came from Dunston, a soft shot that I'm not quite sure how it beat the keeper.
A marvelous finale, I celebrated by taking the bus back to the station.
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