Tuesday April 9th 2013 Arlesey Home RIC Tuesday 9th April 2013 Red Insure Cup Final 2nd Leg Frome Town 1 Arlesey 1 (aet) Arlesey win the Cup 2-1 on aggregate Score at 90 mins: Frome 1 Arlesey 0 Frome Scorers: D. Evans  (45+2) Arlesey Scorers: Dillon (103) Crowd: 281 Star Man: Luke Ballinger Entertainment Value: 5 Frome Town came so close to winning the Red Insure Cup as they produced their best performance of the season, but the 1-0 scoreline at 90 minutes was just enough to send the match into extra time and Arlesey snatched the winner to become worthy winners of the trophy.  Frome started the match with Luke Ballinger and Ricky Hulbert playing up front and given free license to play wherever they fancied, and with Mark Cooper back on the left, Mike Perrott on the right and Matt Smith and Dean Evans driving things in the centre, they soon started producing some hard working, fluid interchanges with players running into space that promised much and was good to watch. The first quarter belonged to Frome, but the crowd soon realised that Frome would need to find a way past Arlesey’s excellent goalkeeper Nat Abbey who was dealing with everything that came near him with complete confidence. Arlesey’s first chance of the match came in the 14th minute as a free kick took a wicked deflection that saw the ball well saved by Darren Chitty, but then bounce up onto the crossbar and come back down into play, with two Arlesey forwards somehow managing to avoid scoring from close range. As the half progressed, Frome were playing their best football of the season, and shooting chances, corners and free kicks produced a stream of efforts that were either slightly off target or ended up in the capable hands of Nat Abbey, however, they finally carved out a golden chance in the 46th minute as Ballinger intercepted a back pass, rounded the keeper and only just failed to pull the ball back from a tight angle, with the ball ending up in the side netting. Their reward did come one minute later, though, and this time Hulbert flicked the ball onto Dean Evans who just beat the offside trap to score with a low shot into the corner that just evaded the diving Abbey.     The second half was more of the same, and Frome had a goal disallowed in the 50th minute as Rhys Baggridge headed home a Ballinger free kick at the far post, only for the goal to be ruled out for offside. Mike Perrott was so close to heading home in the 65th but then a period of Arlesey pressure brought a save from Chitty and a header off the line as both sides searched for the next goal. An Arlesey header 6 minutes later went wide of the Frome goal when it looked easier to score, but although the entertaining match swung from end to end, 90 minutes arrived with the score 1-0 to Frome, which was the only scoreline that could send the match into extra time. The first period of extra time saw a stinging 20 yard Matt Smith drive gathered at the second attempt by Abbey, and then a flowing Frome move saw Jed Harper Penman shoot over from 18 yards, but it was Arlesey who broke the deadlock in the 13th minute of the half as Chitty came out and got good distance on a punched header, but the ball was gathered and played back in to Chris Dillon who turned and produced perfect shot into the top corner from 15 yards. Arlesey protected their lead well in the second half as they played possession football in the Frome half, but with 4 minutes remaining, Darren Chitty came up for a corner, got his head to the ball and headed down to Mike Perrott who clipped his half volley just wide of the post from a couple of yards out. That was Frome’s big chance and apart from the game being held up for 5 minutes as the referee seemed to accidentally catch a swinging arm on the nose, no other chances came along and Arlesey were awarded with the Red Insure Cup, with Frome very worthy runners up.  This was an excellent performance by Frome and Luke Ballinger was awarded the  “H&B Tyres Man of the Match” award by representatives of Sandstone Media (who had sponsored the match,) for a very good, very committed performance. Frome Town Arlesey Officials D Eaton S Yianni A Newell Match Photos Photos of this match taken by our expert photographer Chas Hadfield can be viewed by clicking on this rectangle Match Sponsor Sandstone Media Ball Sponsor AM Print & Copy Nat Abbey Cameron Mawer Josh Cook Dan Gordon Ryan Frater Leon Hibbert Jeanmal Prosper Oliver Thorne Chris Dillon Drew Roberts Aston Goss Stuart Farrell Nick Bussey Kim Forsythe Chris March James Hatch