IQRA

I.Q.R.A. 1-5 Syston Midland Railway

Sunday 11th March 2012

Leicester Sunday League Premier Cup Group C

Evington Park [pitch 1], Leicester, LE5 6DE

With the wife being given another Sunday shift at her work and also with the weather being favourable unlike last Sunday, I decided to take in another Leicester Sunday League game for the second time in three weeks, which like the previous one is at a venue that is not used by a Saturday side.

This fixture pits Division 1 side IQRA against Premier Division Syston Midland Railway, whom happened to be the visiting team at Goscote Spartans two weeks ago. The Premier Cup is one of five cup competitions that the Leicester Sunday League organise. The others are the League Cup, Presidents Cup, Chairman's Cup and Senior Cup. The Premier Cup is organised on a round robin group basis with four groups of four. The other teams in Group C are FC Shoemakers 09 and Fairfield United. There have been three matches played so far in this group:

19/02: Syston Midland Railway 4-3 IQRA

19/02: FC Shoemakers 09 6-1 Fairfield United

04/03: Fairfield United 2-4 IQRA

Evington Park like the name suggests is a public park and is located in the eastern suburbs of Leicester. It is home to two football pitches, cricket, 2 bowling greens and 6 tennis courts. A location of the park can be found here: map link

The game was played in glorious sunshine and was one that kicked off twenty minutes late due to the arrival time of Syston. They also only turned up with ten players. The hosts made the perfect start when they took the lead on four minutes with a superb lob over the visiting keeper. Parity should have been restored shortly afterwards but a Syston goal was wrongly ruled out for offside. There were two Syston players in the box when the ball was played across - one was offside, one not and it was the player who was not that finished the move off. The home side then nearly made it 2-0 but a sweetly struck volley hit one of the uprights. With around fifteen minutes played Syston did get a deserved equaliser when the ball was lobbed over the hesitant IQRA keeper. Two goals in the space of three minutes for the visitors put them in control of proceedings. Firstly on thirty five minutes, following a couple of powerful shots that were saved by the keeper the ball rebounded to their #9 and he finished from a couple of yards out. Then just three minutes later and a through ball was finished coolly past the keeper. Right on the stroke of half time and the visitors had their fourth of the morning and this came from an own goal as a defender turned in a cross at the near post. 


The second half saw only one further goal and this came on the hour mark when Jamie Wood found himself one on one with the IQRA keeper and finished with ease. This is not to say the half was without any incident as the home keeper produced a few superb saves to keep the score down. A flashpoint did occur when an IQRA completely lost the plot. There was a foul in the middle of the mark and the referee blew for a free kick to the home side. A player who was nowhere near the incident started giving the referee a lot of verbals which was completely unjust. When he was calmed down the referee booked him on the condition that he was substituted immediately. A sensible decision in my book. The player then gave his manager a mouthful as well which was undeserved.

websites / sources:

IQRA page (Leicester Sunday League website)

Syston Midland Railway page (Leicester Sunday League website)

A slideshow of photos taken during the game can be viewed below: