A hard fought game which was a harder contest than anticipated! Copland started well with Darren Turner finishing after only five minutes! This followed some excellent build up play between Ricci Roberts and Jermaine Dadson down the left hand side.

For the majority of the rest of the first half Copland played the better football but were never given the time to settle on the ball with LUFA keenly contesting everything. Midway through the first half Copland had a cast iron penalty turned down as Aaron Silcott attempted to turn in the area but had both his legs taken with the referee standing two metres away! The whistle went to the mouth but for some reason was not blown, the first of a number of bizarre decisions by the referee!

Towards the end of the first half LUFA won a corner which was played over every bodies head and finished off by the left midfielder. 1-1 at the break.

Copland started with a belief that the quality of their recent football would see them through at the end of the day. However, within five minutes of the restart a moment’s hesitation allowed the LUFA striker to get his toe to the ball and poke the ball through into the unguarded net. Copland were obviously downhearted at this setback but continued to try and play football and at times moved the ball around nicely. Following some good play again by Ricci Roberts the ball was played through for Aaron Silcott to run onto it and slot the ball under the advancing keeper.

The game remained tight with contrasting styles with LUFA trying to utilise their pace on the break and Copland endeavouring to play through them. Then came the game changing moment! Rashard Grant won a long ball over the top to clearly play the ball out for a corner with the LUFA striker following through onto Rashard’s clearing leg. Somehow the referee decided that what he did was dangerous and to everybody’s disbelief a penalty was awarded! At least the referee was consistent in his poor decision making against Copland! The penalty was dispatched and to compound this a fourth was scored by LUFA.

With the last five minutes left following some severe pressure on the LUFA goal Copland eventually broke through with Aaron Silcott scoring his second of the match!

Obviously a very disappointing result but Copland will have to put this behind us as we have an early kick-off against Sloane next week at 11am as part of a ground hoping exercise which is hoped to draw a crowd of one hundred and fifty plus!