On Wednesday 27th March, the Over 70's travelled to the home of Rushall Olympic F.C to play in the 1st Round of the WFLA National Cup.
There were four teams scheduled to take part in a "round robin" league tournament, Birmingham, Coventry, Atherstone and Old Corinthians. The top two teams would qualify to play in Round 2 during the month of April.
On the day Atherstone were unable to field a side so the remaining three sides played off against each other.
Birmingham 1 Coventry & District 0
Birmingham's first game was against their old "enemy" Coventry & District. Matches between these two clubs in this age group and younger are always competitive affairs, and this match did not prove any different.
Birmingham started brightly but failed to take a couple of early chances as the Coventry goalkeeper played his part in keeping the scores level. Keith Phipps in the Birmingham goal had a fairly quiet game overall but had to move smartly on a couple of occasions to keep Coventry out.
The deadlock was broken by Birmingham after a fine passing movement was finished by Derek Greene with one of his trademark piledrivers.
Birmingham 0 Old Corinthians 0
This was a very "competitive" match to say the least. Both teams had won their games against Coventry which meant that they had both already qualified for Round 2. However, both sides did not want to lose the match and none more so than Old Corinthians who employed some dubious strong-arm tactics which largely went unpunished by a very lenient referee who seemed more intent on penalising walking offences than more serious tackles from the back and side.
Because of this the game was a very stop - start affair which affected the flow of Birmingham's passing game.
In the end no one from either side was able to break the deadlock, so honours even and on to the next round.
Postscript: Birmingham and Old Corinthians have both received byes in Round 2 and will now play in the 3rd Round in early to mid-June.
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