Runton have Carrow Road trip to look forward to after semi-final win

They did the Walcott Lighthouse Inn NEN League proud by beating Yelverton from Division Two of the Anglian Combination 4-1 in Saturday's semi-final at Woodhill Playing Field.

The visitors rattled the Runton bar inside five minutes but on nine minutes probably the best move of the match saw home captain Ben Sharman burst through from midfield and cross for Lewis Smith to open the scoring.

Runton thought they had doubled their advantage when Andrew Hubbard went up for a challenge with the vkeeper, chased down the loose ball and scored from a narrow angle but the assistant referee flagging ruled that the ball had already gone out for a corner.

Thereafter neither side really threatened and the game drifted without much to shout about towards half-time.

After the restart, with the home side now attacking down their favourite slope, they increased their lead in the 58th minute through Jamie Nelson who finished well.

Two minutes later though a game Runton were controlling took a turn for the worse when goalkeeper Grant Youngs needlessly got sent off for getting involved with a Yelverton forward after the ball had been cleared.

George Crane was sacrificed to allow the experienced Paul Winterbone to take over keeping duties but he was unable to stop the resultant penalty.

The red card seemed to affect the visitors more than Runton however and the hosts created good openings and from one of these Nelson added a third.

With the game reaching its conclusion Liam Davies then put the icing on the cake in the 87th minute to send his side off to Carrow Road for the final on Tuesday, May 23 (7.30pm) where they will meet UEA, from the Anglian Combination, who saw off Wells Town 2-1.

This turned into a sound win for Runton as the defence was also in charge, so much so that the stand-in keeper was never really tested.

Referee Jason Ding deserves a special mention for a competent display, keeping a firm hand on proceedings when needed.