It was the classic game of two halves in ‘Charlie’s derby’ christened in honour of my seven year old nephew Charlie who has both Sunderland and Macclesfield Town Season Tickets (in that order mind) as the Lads ran out 2 – 1 winners in the FA Youth Cup.

Whilst the great unwashed wet themselves at the return of the perambulator toy evacuator up the road, the real footballing public of the north east braved the cold winds off the North Sea at a proper stadium to watch the only team around worth watching.

The first chance of the match fell to Martyn Wags Waghorn who headed well wide after a fantastic burst from Colback. Moments later the former showed great skill and control whilst spinning on the edge of the box and lofting a shot narrowly wide.

In the ninth minute Luscombe made a good direct run at the defenders and the only way they could halt his progress was to concede a penalty. Up stepped Wags and did what he hadn’t done in training the previous day and powered it into the net.

Cook and Waghorn then combined well and the latter’s beautifully weighted ball curled into the path of the on running Luscombe who rammed it home to double the advantage.

Confidence grew and there was some lovely attacking inter-play during the remainder of the half. However, it was the Silkmen (who had John Rooney on the bench, brother of a certain Wayne) who had the next best chance when just before the half hour mark an excellent through ball was snatched at by Kristian Dennis when perhaps he should have taken another couple of paces before striking the ball.

Moments later Wags was pulled back not once but twice deep inside the penalty area but the referee claimed to see nothing and then did what crap refs do when they know they’re crap and blew seconds later for a free kick in our favour when it was difficult to see any foul.

Five minutes before the break Colback walloped the crossbar Keyring style and Wags unbelievably side footed the rebound high and wide whilst only eight yards out and with the keeper prostrate on the ground – it was almost Ronnie Rosenthal territory.

In injury time at the end of the half Jordan Henderson brought a good save from Joe Brobbin but perhaps should have been more ruthless and killed the game off. It was an unusually quiet night for Jordan, who for me is our most improved player this season.

H/T: 2-0

In the early exchanges of the second period, the match was fairly even. Just before the hour mark Wags pulled his shot wide from a good position after great work by Colback. However, the visitors started to apply more and more pressure and gave our defence an uncomfortable ride. The lads from Moss Road should have got their reward on 62 minutes but some kind of invisible force-field must have developed around our goal as between Hunter and several defenders, we managed to keep out what seemed a certain goal time and again.

Great play by Macc’s danger man Nick Blackman (who has played several first team games recently) helped to set up Dennis who’s powerful header was well saved by Hunter, and whilst the coaching manual would have demanded the header should have gone earthwards and anywhere but straight at the keeper, fair play to Martin, he showed good foot work to adjust to the whipped in cross and stood up well to the powerful header.

Hunter pulled off another good save soon after, parrying a shot from just outside the box although he may have hoped to make the shot stick. Cook then did well running down the line, cutting in and sending a shot just past the wrong side of the post on 73 minutes.

The ref who was truly abysmal then refused to give a free kick for the most blatant body check in history when Luscombe was blocked – it was such a poor decision that you could only laugh at how bad it was. I doubt a signed confession by the defender himself would have persuaded the ref to give the correct decision.

With ten minutes to go Kristian Dennis halved the arrears to delight of what seemed like half of Cheshire sat in the stands. However despite their pressure, there were only two more high points to report – neither relating to actual play. The first came when one of the ball boys led a Temuri Ketsbia inspired kung fu attack on the advertising hording whilst being keen as mustard to return the ball to play. The second was when the 4 th official held up a board stating 2 minutes injury time - as it must have been the only correct decision made by any of the officials in the entire half – and that’s not a biased view they got every decision wrong whether it was for or against us. The fact that the ref then went on to play almost four minutes injury time was either irony or perhaps a very clever definition of the phrase adding insult to injury.

The lads did enough to hang on and whilst it would be easy to criticise and say they took their foot off the gas too much in second half, their highly impressive first half performance allowed them the right to get away with an indifferent second period. A quick mention for the Macclesfield supporters who filled an entire coach and were rightly proud of their lads’ efforts, fair play to them.

The lads will play the winners of Arsenal v Liverpool tie at home in the fifth round. As for nephew Charlie, I explained that regardless of the result, it had been a win, win situation but he’s much cleverer than me and sagely pointed out that in fact it was a win lose.

Full Time: Sunderland Youths 2-1 Macclesfield Town Youths

Sunderland: Hunter, Kay, Liddle, Hourihane (Reed), Cornforth, McArdle, Cook, Colback, Waghorn, Henderson (R Noble), Luscombe. Subs unused: Staples, L Noble, Galer

Man of the Match: Jack the Lad, Jack the Biscuit, Jack the Colback - class

Attendance: 574

Dov