FA Cup: Simmonds sinks Casuals as Pagham progress

Dan Simmonds’ hat-trick saw Pagham stroll casually into the next round of the FA Cup with a 3-1 win over Corinthian Casuals.
By The Newsroom
Published 3rd Sep 2015, 08:00 BST

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Dan Simmonds on his way to a hat-trick / Picture by Roger SmithDan Simmonds on his way to a hat-trick / Picture by Roger Smith
Dan Simmonds on his way to a hat-trick / Picture by Roger Smith

The visitors from Ryman one south, Corinthian Casuals, seemed to have under-estimated the Lions and Jon Tucker’s side can be proud of their win in the preliminary round.

The next round sees Carshalton Athletic visit Nyetimber Lane on September 12.

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Following a minute’s silence to commemorate those caught in the Shoreham air-show tragedy, the early exchanges were in the visitors’ favour, Juevan Spencer and Warren Morgan both having chances to score.

Mark Cooper and James Binfield rescued the Lions, Binfield pulling off a tremendous early save to deny Josh Uzun.

Sekou Kaba headed across Pagham’s goal and the Lions defence cleared the lines.

Pagham skipper Dan Swain had a tremendous game in midfield and almost capped it with a goal as a long-range shot forced a finger-tip save from Casuals’ Danny Bracken. Kevant Serbont’s shot on the turn almost opened the scoring.

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The first goal, when it arrived, was quality. Simmonds’ solo run and shot was too much for Bracken and gave the in-form forward seven goals for the season so far.

The game became an end-to-end thriller, shots raining in on both goals.

It took all of five minutes in the second half for Pagham and Simmonds to score a second. Another fine run and shot doubled the lead.

A superior Lions side went three ahead on 56 minutes, with Simmonds’ hat-trick well-deserved.

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The visitors looked rattled and the Lions pushed on for more goals with Casuals’ only sight of goal coming from free-kicks.

Twenty minutes from time, Tucker upped the ante by bringing on strikers, Rob Wimble and Joe Gromett for Dan Martin and Rob Brown.

An enjoyable afternoon was almost ruined by an unneccesary fracas on 76 minutes, all the players getting involved.

Kieron Playle-Howard for the Lions and Serbony for the visitors saw red and Simmonds picked up a yellow card for Pagham.

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Tucker took Simmonds off to save any further trouble for a player who had been the hero of the day.

Casuals’ Kaba saw a shot go wide but made amends with a great goal with two minutes to go, but by then the Lions had the game wrapped up. Wimble forced a save from Bracken before the end.

PAGHAM: Binfield, Cooper, R Cox, Davidson, Playre-Howard, Swain, Martin (Wimble 70), Kempson, Simmonds (Boniface 76), R Brown (Grommet 70), Kew. Subs: A Brown, Lewis, Cody, Connolly.

JON ROSE

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