12.15pm 8 January 2022
West Riding FA, Challenge Cup, 4th Round
Hanging Heaton 2 South Milford 4 (att 27)
I'd been considering watching this cup tie even before I spotted, on Friday evening, that it had been brought forward to a lunchtime kick off. The earlier start allowed the possibility of a second game.
Options for a second match narrowed considerably when the start time was put back 15 minutes to allow a Hanging Heaton player to arrive. Common sense of course, especially as a 2pm booking on the pitch had been cancelled, but a little frustrating for me.
In the end I needn't have worried, and Hanging Heaton, from the third tier of the Yorkshire Amateur League, and South Milford, from the fourth level of the York League, provided a very entertaining game.
Two early goals put the visitors in command. They were the better side, but couldn't shake off a dogged home side. Hanging Heaton pulled a goal back, conceded a third, then reduced the arrears again, all before half time.
South Milford's decisive fourth goal was early in the second period. They had chances to score more, and Hanging Heaton came close more than once, but as the tie became more feisty there were no more goals.
Hanging Heaton used to be called Fox and Hounds, and under that name I watched them lose by an unlikely 6-10 score at their old ground in 2017. Since then they've changed ground as well as name, and the first team are now at St John Fisher School in Dewsbury. There's a grass pitch a newly-installed 4G, on which this game was played.
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