Week ending 21st September by Mason Norton

According to the people who know about these things, Saturday 21 September 2024 was the last day of the summer, Sunday representing the equinox. The weather on Saturday certainly marked the changing of the seasons, starting quite warm, but then breaking out into a thunderstorm in late afternoon. This chiefly explains why of the 13 ties that started in the first round of the Everards Tiger Bitter League Cup on Saturday afternoon, only six finished, one of the highest-ever number of abandonments in the LSL in a single day.

One of the abandonments was not down to the weather, but to a serious injury at Gleneagles Avenue, where Highfield Rangers were leading Mountsorrel Amateurs 1-0 thanks to a goal from Raijaun Morris-Laing when Mountsorrel's Rooney Rubio suffered a serious head injury involving concussion, which resulted in the game being stopped and the player requiring medical assistance, whereupon he was taken to hospital. The referee Mr Scriven decided to abandon the match after a lengthy stoppage. The League and Ramble Round wish the player a speedy recovery.

The other six abandonments were caused due to the weather. Indeed, the journey of the storm can almost be charted by the times of the abandonments. The storm came in at half-time, and resulted in the suspension of the ties between Whetstone Athletic and Sileby Town, FC Khalsa and Anstey Town, Thurnby Rangers against Dunton & Broughton United and St Patricks against Magna 73. With conditions not improving, those games were abandoned before the second half started. At the time of the abandonments, St Patricks led Magna 2-1, as did Thurnby against Dunton & Broughton.

There was an attempt to continue in the tie between Glen Villa and Brookside Athletic, but that tie was abandoned after 52 minutes as the heavy rain threatened to turn conditions farcical, Brookside leading 1-0 at the time of the abandonment. 58 minutes were on the clock at Ellistown, where visitors AFC North Kilworth were leading 3-1 when thunder and lightning struck close to the ground as the weather made its way into the north of the county, forcing referee Mr Goddard to take the players off for their safety, and an abandonment was confirmed later when it was clear that the storm was not abating. A decision as to the abandoned ties will be made by the Management Committee in due course. The same will go for the tie in the City Goldsmiths President's Trophy which was abandoned.

The six completed ties included some big shocks. The bottom two sides in the Everards Brewery Premier Division both exited the competition against lower-ranked opposition. Burbage & Huncote, who won the competition in 2023, suffered an embarrassing first-round exit at home to Div2 side Hinckley Borough. Guy Weston scored for B&H, Connor Kiely replied for Hinckley Borough, which took the tie to penalties, with no extra time available until the semi-final stage of the competition. A prolonged shoot-out followed, which saw Boro come out on top 9-8 on spot-kicks, giving them an impressive scalp on their first foray into the LSL. There was a battle of the basement sides, as Premier Division bottom-but-one Friar Lane & Epworth travelled to Div1 bottom side Sutton Bonington. The tie finished 0-0 in normal time, and spot-kicks followed at a wet and increasingly stormy Main Street as the storms raged up towards the boundary with Nottinghamshire, with SB coming through 5-4 on penalties.

A topsy-turvy tie at Nanpantan Sports Ground saw Div1 side Loughborough Dynamo draw 2-2 at home to Premier Division Leicester Atletico, Sam Allen and Will Burton for Dynamo, Mohamed Hogsade and Kieran Hefford for Atletico. The shoot-out broke 5-4 for Dynamo, who progress. The fourth time to upset higher-league opposition was Rothley Imperial of Division Two, who beat Division One team Barrow Town at Riverside Park. The scores were 1-1 at half-time, but Rothley kicked away in the second period to win 4-2, goals coming from Leighton Barley, Harry Toon, Ben Wagg and sub Luke Denham, Shakour Benjamin and Dean Hopewell scoring for Barrow.

The two other ties went the way of the form book, and saw comfortable victories. The all-Div2 match at the Drome was one-sided traffic, as Community Football Academy won 7-2 at Loughborough FC, Zak Yusuf scoring a hat-trick, Jaseem Khamkar a brace, Kashar Raja and sub Mohamed Mahir rounding off the goals, Barrie Atkinson and Ryan Hardy both coming off the bench for Luffs in the second period to score consolations, the Academy having been 4-0 up at the break. It was even more one-sided in South Wigston, where the LSL's bottom side Leicester United welcomed Premier Division team Cottesmore. Cottesmore raced into a 5-0 lead after 25 minutes, and only the ferocious storm coming in interrupted their rhythm, as referee Mr Carr took the teams off. After a lengthy suspension, conditions improved and the game restarted, with Cotts adding a sixth before the half-time interval. The Rutland side eased off in the second period, and that, and some good saves from the Leicester Utd keeper, kept the final score to 8-0 to Cottesmore, Josh Clark scoring a hat-trick, Jordan Smith a double, Robbie Dance, Matt Pope and Oliver Troth also scoring