Ledbury Town Football Club

Match report

Josh Burns scored a last-minute winner to complete a brilliant comeback victory for Ledbury Town against Holme Lacy on Saturday.

Despite Dean Lee’s first half goal, Ledbury were 3-1 down after an hour and the game looked over. However, Town showed fantastic spirit in the final 20 minutes, with a Ben Febery penalty and a Craig Howell goal bringing them level before Burns’s last gasp strike sent New Street into hysterics.

After a defeat at Malvern last weekend and a disappointing midweek draw to Worcester United, Ledbury needed to turn their form around but were behind inside seven minutes. A wicked freekick from outside the box beat Alex Goode in the Ledbury goal, but hit the post with Holme Lacy reacting first and scoring from the rebound. It should have been two as five minutes later Lacy missed a header from point blank range.

Ledbury finally got into the game with Josh Burns looking lively, and he cut inside from the left and shot narrowly wide from the corner of the box. Within moments Ben Miller drove down the left and pulled the ball back into the box. Dean Lee was first to it and stumbled after a late tackle. As everyone else shouted for a penalty, Lee recovered his footing to prod the ball past the keeper to equalise.

Parity was short-lived. Ten minutes before half time, Ledbury failed to clear their lines. Holme Lacy got in down the right, pulled the ball back across the box and while the initial shot hit the post, the Lacy striker was first to react again and turned in the loose ball.

With Ledbury captain Joel Skyers having to leave the field with an injury, things went from bad to worse. On the hour mark, a straight ball through the Ledbury defence found the Lacy striker through on goal and he made no mistake.

Ledbury had to find something. Anything. And some perceived officiating injustices were the order of the day. In his last action of the game, Miller was sent through on goal for Ledbury and was brought down 25 yards out by the last Holme Lacy defender. The ref gave a freekick, and only a yellow card. Ledbury couldn’t make anything of the set piece but in the 70^th minute Kieran Loveridge, on for Miller, latched on to a ball over the top, and was brought down in the box for a penalty. The same defender who, arguably should have been sent off for the earlier foul on Miller, somehow avoided a second yellow card for the last-ditch foul on Loveridge. Regardless, Ben Febery stepped up and smashed the penalty past the keeper.

Town took full control and pushed forward, committing numbers to find the equaliser. Brilliant football from Ledbury as Febery played a wonderful pass down the left for Burns and he pulled the ball back into the box for Craig Howell to meet and slot home, drawing Ledbury level.

The final ten minutes was frantic, with anything resembling a football match being replaced with basketball; end-to-end stuff, with both teams looking for their Last Dance. With Ledbury’s Michael Jordan hanging up his boots two weeks into the season, it was left to Scottie Pippen to win it for Town – and, in injury time, he did. Josh Burns collected the ball on the left side of the box, elegantly skipped past two defenders and smashed the ball across the keeper into the far corner of the net to win the game and spark wild celebrations.