Where is the love?

Red to many may be the colour of passion, but passions boiled over for altogether different reasons at Bobby Hancocks park in this Valentines-week fixture at Southam United on an unseasonably mild Friday night under the lights. With no affections lost between the teams, the home side were out for a measure of revenge after a bad-tempered reversal in the corresponding away fixture earlier in the season, and in a blood and thunder encounter that saw two red cards for the home side, the home support might have found themselves asking ‘Where is the Love?’.

The atmosphere fizzed and crackled pre-kick-off, an excitable crowd converging on BHP for this Friday night fixture, and not till the eighth minute was the first punch landed, Shane Osborne bursting through after a neat ball out of defence cleaving the Abingdon centre halves in two, only to find himself frustrated by the linesman’s flag. Two minutes later, the Southam despair was compounded when a ball in from a right-sided corner sailed over the flailing Max Court and was bundled home after a smart knockdown at the far post to put the visitors in front. Bradley Goddard acquitted himself excellently just five minutes later, a neat ball out of midfield down the left side releasing the Abingdon wide forward who was closed down swiftly by the Southam full back. Abingdon continued to threaten to extend their lead, a smart ball in from wide right being somehow cannoned over from 8 yards. The game turned on the twenty seventh minute, Kyle Linford seeing red after a cynical pull on the Abingdon centre forward who had been released. With Linford being adjudged to have been last man, the referee had no option but to show the red card and Southam found themselves in an uphill battle from thereon out.

With tempers running high, trouble flared shortly afterwards, a strong challenge from the Abingdon centre midfielder seeing a swirling melee develop in the midfield with Josh Dixon at its centre. With players and management alike involved the referee was in danger of losing complete control of the fixture. Things threatened to go from bad to worse for Southam a minute from the break, when a ball sent from deep caught the home defence fast asleep, leaving the Abingdon centre forward free to round the keeper, somehow contriving to crash the ball against the post, drawing predictable howls of derision from the home fans. The visitors ramped up the pressure, keen to make their man advantage count, and Bradley Goddard was once again the right man in the right place, making an incredible challenge to keep the deficit to one going in for the break. The Southam full back was the pick of the bunch, putting in a tenacious performance at full back for the home side.

Abingdon returned from half time fired up and determined to make their man advantage count, and they did so in clinical fashion on fifty-six minutes, Harry Auckland rising above everyone in the Southam backline to nod over Max Court after a very neat interchange in midfield to extend the visitors’ lead. The tempo remained high, and any hope of an unlikely Southam fightback was thoroughly extinguished just five minutes later when McGuire was shown a second yellow after bundling over an Abingdon player in midfield and reducing the home side to nine men. Abingdon added a third in the sixty third minute when a swift counterattack saw a swift counter attack resulted in the Abingdon forward being released from right full back and slotting neatly underneath the advancing Southam keeper. Southam tried desperately to rekindle some hope of a fightback, captain Andy Yeates trying desperately to lead by example, carrying the ball valiantly forward through the midfield of a numerically superior opponent seemingly all on his own. However, it wasn’t to be and Abingdon completed the rout on eighty-five, Harry Ackerman nodding home from a left-sided corner to complete their double over the Warwickshire side this season.