Scarva Rangers humbled again as YCOB march on

For the second time this season the village side were dumped out of a knockout competition by a side three league divisions below them. Three weeks ago it was Orchard City in the Marshall Cup. At the weekend Banbridge Youth Club Old Boys, who like Orchard City are in their debut season in the Mid-Ulster League, inflicted the damage. The home side can have few complaints about this latest humbling as the visitors deserved their victory in Saturday’s Mid-Ulster Shield first round tie. They took a first half lead with a goal from close range but Scarva levelled matters when Freddie McKelvey met a sumptuous Greg Douglas corner with an emphatic header that crashed into the back of the net. The momentum swung back in the visitors’ favour when they scored a headed goal shortly before the half time interval. The onus was on Scarva to come out in the second half and rescue the tie but they weren’t equal to the task. They were lethargic and sluggish, less because they didn’t want to win than because they weren’t physically capable of getting through the work that was required. There were a couple of openings for the hosts, a defence splitting pass from Gary McCune picking out Gregory Douglas whose shot was well saved by the visiting keeper. A neat passage of play on Scarva’s right involving McCune and William Morrison ended with Mark Baird whipping the ball dangerously across the face of the penalty area but none of his team-mates were on hand to steer it home. At the other end, the visitors broke menacingly from a Scarva corner but Mark Gracey astutely read the situation and ventured out of his area to head the ball clear in the nick of time. Minutes later he made an impressive save from a YCOB header. In an incident packed finale, the visitors scored a third goal to wrap up victory and both sides were correctly reduced to ten men after an altercation between two outfield players. That wasn’t the end of the drama. In the final minute the visitors were awarded a spot kick, the hosts were reduced to nine men and the penalty was superbly saved by stand in keeper Mark Baird.