On Saturday I watched the last 16 round of the FA Vase online between Warrington Rylands and West Aukland. Not very remarkable you will say but for me in two ways.
Firstly because this game should not have been taking place because West Aukland had been comprehensively beaten and eliminated from the competition by North Ferriby in the previous round 4-0. However an administrative error by the North Ferriby team that had failed to register a sending off of one of their players in December meant he should have not played in the tie. So the FA took sanction on North Ferriby and it was West Aukland who were reinstated to play Rylands.
The game was however dull and did not live up to what it should have been. Rylands were by far the better team while West Aukland seemed almost embarrassed to be there. Perhaps they were not prepared only finding out in midweek that they were playing. Rylands took the lead but a scrappy equaliser brought West Aukland level but at the end of the 90 minutes they had nothing to offer against Rylands perfect penalties. North Ferriby must be licking their wounds as they would definitely have been sterner opposition.
Rylands have now beaten two teams in a row from the North East on penalties and fate has now paired them at home against another, Hebburn Town, in the quarter finals.
The second reason for the tie being remarkable for me is that although not a supporter of either team I was able to watch the tie. I hope that the streaming of games will continue post Covid.
Payonthegate 