Moss Vale 5 v De-Trafford 1

MOSS Vale AFC completed an excellent season on Wednesday by destroying De-Trafford in the final of the Manchester United Memorial Cup by five goals to one.

The Vale players started brightley and forced the De-Trafford goalkeeper, Mark Bailey, to make several outstanding saves.

Against the run of play De-Trafford broke down the right hand side when a rare mistake by Vales left back, Rod Kelley, gave the opportunity for Mark Jones to fire De-Trafford into a unexpected lead.

This forced the Vale attack of Gary Brickhill, Sammy Mcllroy and Stuart Walker into action as they bombarded the De-Trafford goal mouth, but again Mark Bailey, the De-Trafford keeper was in fine form saving every effort forced upon him by the Moss Vale attack.

Something had to give and even Bailey could not stop Gary Cooley's well driven effort into the right hand corner to level the scores just before the interval.

Moss Vale took control of the game from the opening minutes of the second half and it was not long before Vale took the lead when Robert Rawcliffe's pass split the De-Trafford defence and Walkers cross found Mcllroy at the back post to fire Vale into a 2-1 lead.

This knocked the stuffing out of De Trafford as Vale's players took total control, with Vales defence of Kelly and Driver, Barry Smith and Curtis Graham sweeping up the isolated De-Trafford attacks.

Again the De-Trafford keeper was having an outstanding game but he could not stop a 25 yard effort from Steve Tobin which put Vale 3-1 in front.

Vale kept pressing forward for more goals and it was not surprising when Cooley completed his brace and Vales fourth.

At this stage Vales Manager Paul Wright introduced Tim Faraday for Stuart Walker

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and Steve Vost for the outstanding Gary Brickhill and Vost duly repayed the team with a goal to put Vale 5-1 in front.

Vost thought he had scored again but the linesman adjudged him to be off-side.

The last bit of action saw a shot by Peter Coyne on its way into the top right hand corner but Jones managed to get a finger-tip to the ball and see it over the bar.

At the final whistle the Moss Vale players celebrated by popping the champagne corks and directed most of it over the Vale Manager, Paul Wright who said afterwards, "I'm absolutely over the moon.

I've been involved in 13 cup finals and this is the first one that I have won."

League and cup Double for Moss Vale

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