Monday night football returned to the ASM stadium with Thame United youth taking on Eversley & California in the first qualifying round of the FA Youth Cup. After victory in the previous round Thame were hoping to progress to the second qualifying round. The home team started the game brightly and had the visitors on the back foot, creating several early chances. Reward for the constant pressure came after 13 minutes, when Hayden Beadle picked up the ball on the edge of the box from a clearance to fire the ball into the top right corner.

Thame continued to push forward and in the 28th minute a strong run into the box by Benedict Afanu ended with him being bought down. Theo Ransby stepped up and slotted the ball low to the keepers left from the resulting penalty. Eversley came close to getting on the score sheet when they firstly hit the post with a low drive and then a free kick was tipped over the bar by keeper James Swindlehurst. A first half dominated by Thame ended 2 -0, with the visitors forced to defend for most of the half and couldn’t cope with the pace of the Thame wingers.

The second half got under way and the visitors came out fighting and took the game to Thame forcing the home side back and mistakes started to creep in. Thame could not keep hold of the ball and started to give the ball away in dangerous areas. The visitors had stopped the wingers pushing forward and the home side found it difficult to get out of their own half. Eversley reward for their dominance came in the 58th minute with a low shot from onside the area beating the keeper.

The game was becoming bad tempered with both side losing their discipline. At this point the visitors looked likely to equalise as Thame had lost shape and were being drawn into a physical battle. .However on 81 minutes an error from the visitors keeper from a back pass allowed Oscar Davies to take the ball off of him and knock into an empty net. From this point the home side took control of the game once more, despite a number of poor challenges and which resulted in a couple of confrontations which the referee had to hand out yellow cards,.

Thame finally put the the game beyond reach of Eversley when Thomas Cove picked up the ball in the box in the 84th minute and slotted home for to make it 4 - 1. Then Hayden Beadle got his second in the 88th minute to make the final score 5 - 1 and put Thame through to the next round. We now wait for the draw to see who we will play in the second Qualifying round.