The advent of half-time can sometimes be a good thing, sometimes it can be a bad thing.
Neil Chappell playing to the camera in the pre-match warmup
This time it looked as though it was a bad thing.
With the momentum swinging slightly in our favour and level at 1-1, the peep of the referee’s whistle for the break seemed to do us no favours at all as our second half simply unravelled.
We allowed Selby Town to suffocate us and reduce us to very little in the way of chances with them rolling in four goals to boot.
The match was arguably lost within the first ten minutes of the restart. A poor touch from us on the edge of our own area on 49 minutes allowed Selby’s Daniel Walker to make space for himself and slot home before the hosts’ Chris Jackson then won the race versus our Daniel Whiting to a ball that had been planted on the edge of the area, lifting it over him into an unguarded net.
Danny Whiting then had to make a decent stop at his near post and then make a double-save from a corner before Neil Chappell made an excellent block with his head to a shot that was heading goalbound.
On 68 minutes it was 4-1 as Walker latched onto a flick at the near post before beating Whiting from close range with the defeat made to look worse with two minutes remaining when Burton’s neat turn on the edge of the area bought him enough room to rifle home.
A penny for your thoughts, Mr Meadowcroft…..
And all of that was in such contrast to the first half where it looked like being an evenly-matched contest.
Selby had gone ahead as early as the second minute when a corner in from the right evaded the arms of Whiting and was headed home at the far post by Gothard.
Shortly after that we had two decent chances. On the 4th minute we whipped in a corner that found Warren Gaskin unattended at the far post only for him to misjudge his header and put it wide with Warren then side-footing wide five minutes later when he got onto the end of a free-kick.
Andrew Lunt looked to have a stonewall penalty denied on 26 minutes when he was felled just as he was about to pull the trigger with us then going level just after the half-hour mark.
Ben Brooks - the eyes have it
A foul right on the edge of the area gave us a free-kick square onto goal with Paul Sunderland doing the honours and drilling us level.
Just two minutes later Oliver Hatfield-Banton tossed in a free-kick for the head of Patrick Davin, only for the ball to loop onto the top of the crossbar.
Paul Sunderland had another similar free-kick opportunity in the second half that was beaten away by the keeper, but by then it would have only been a consolation as the tie had already run away from us.
Back to the league action we go this Wednesday as we face a tricky match at Stone Old Alleynians and a chance to put things right.
Good luck to Selby Town in the next round of the FA Vase.
TEAM: Whiting, Machado Le Gal, Hamzat, Hatfield-Banton (Johnson), Gaskin, Chappell, Clayton (Russell), Lunt, Davin, Sunderland, Brooks (Jenkinson). SUBS: Jenkinson, Piggott (gk), Naughton, Johnson, Russell, Brownhill, Meadowcroft.