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Next Round Robins

30/9/2015

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PictureThe North Stand
​Having never attended a Buckingham Charity Cup game or visited The Irish Centre, Tuesday night's choice of game was easy. Buckingham Town v Winslow United in the aforementioned competition. I decided that it would be wise to do some research on this competition before attending a game but, try as I might, I couldn't find a
list of previous winners anywhere. A tweet before the game revealed that the current holders are Buckingham Athletic, Banbury United won it three season on the bounce before that, Cogenhoe, Leighton and Aylesbury Vale have all won in the past 10 years. Thanks to @WinslowUtdFC and @FootballMK for that information. The matchday
programme also showed that Buckingham Town have won it three times, with Winslow winning twice and they have even shared the trophy on one occasion.  However, this is
a competition that has run from 1927 onwards, so can we fill in the missing information? Time for some real investigative work.
Buckingham Town, after being evicted from their Ford Meadow ground in 2010, are now playing at Manor Fields, part of the Irish Centre in Bletchley. The centre is also
the home of Bletchley Rugby Club and Bletchley Town Cricket Club.
The football stadium has a capacity of around 2,500 with 600 seats the majority of which are in the North Stand which runs the full length of one side of the pitch.
Opposite this is the smaller South Stand and the dugouts. There are no refreshment facilities within the ground itself but tea, coffee etc. is available from the Irish Club adjacent to the stadium.
Buckingham Town and Winslow United are very old rivals having first played each other competitively in 1898, although  there were friendlies prior to this meeting.
Immediately after being evicted from Buckingham, The Robins also played their home games in Winslow, a the Winslow Centre, just a few hundred yards from United's
Elmfields Gate ground. In all the teams have met 112 times with Buckingham having won 64 to Winslow's 39. Extraordinarily, there have only been 9 draws in all these years. (Thanks to the Buckingham Town programme for these facts).
Although both teams are currently in Step 6 divisions they do not play in the same league with Buckingham plying their trade in the United Counties League and Winslow
in the Spartan South Midlands. Neither team has set their respective league alight this term although Buckingham did have a good win at Raunds last weekend to see them
climb into mid-table. United, meanwhile, sit second bottom just above Arlesey Reserves on goal difference, despite conceding 12 on the opening day of the season.
With an FA Vase match coming up and their league predicament to focus on, it was no surprise to hear that Winslow planned to field a mix of first team and reserve players. Buckingham named an unchanged squad from their victory at the weekend.

PictureSouth Stand
It was the away side who probably had the edge in the first 15 minutes of the game although neither side made any clear cut openings. Winslow were the more direct of the two, especially targeting the channel down their left flank, looking to get the Buckingham defence turned around. The home defence, though, was organised well
enough to thwart this tactic and they gradually worked themselves into the game.
After 25 minutes of cancelling each other out, Buckingham took the lead. A fairly straight-forward ball through the middle was flicked on for top-scorer Tariq Kotey to beat the offside trap. The big number 9 calmly lifted the ball over the advancing keeper and into the net. This seemed to spark the home side into life and they almost went two up immediately. A free-kick played into the box was met with a dipping drive that the Winslow keeper, Owusu Boetang, acrobatically tipped onto the bar. As the ball bounced down, Kotey met it from 6 yards only for Boetang to pull off a spectacular save, tipping it over the bar. As it happened Kotey was offside but credit to the keeper for a fantastic piece of agility.
Winslow then had their best chance of the half when Jason Costello headed over when he probably should have, at least, made the keeper work. They were immediately made
to rue the miss when Buckingham stole the ball in midfield. Attacking down their left, the ball was crossed to the far post leaving Joel McCormick the relatively easy task of knocking past the keeper.
​
Half-time - 2-0 to the home team and there didn't seem to be a way back for Winslow.

Saying that, very early in the second half, Winslow should really have pulled a goal back. Freshwater's long ball found Barzey clean through with just the keeper to beat. However, the striker misfired and the chance was gone. Whether a goal at that point would have changed the game we'll never know and, just a few minutes later, the Robins sealed the victory. A fine run down the right was pulled across goal for McCormick to control and smash beyond Boetang for 3-0. A further 15 minutes into the half and home captain Denderfield scored the goal of the game. Picking up the ball 30 yards out he fired an unstoppable drive into the top corner.
There was no further scoring from either side. Winslow kept playing to the bitter end but ultimately they had been outclassed on the night. There was plenty of enthusiasm from the away side but the Robins won it at a canter.

So, the big question from the night. Is the complete list of Buckingham Charity Cup winners out there anywhere? Any clues, please let us know.

Buckingham Town - @buckingham_town
Winslow United - @winslowutdfc

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