Queens Park’s in-form strikers Jason Gold and Jonny Cox won the battle of the marksmen and helped their team win Southland Soccer’s Charity cup final 4-1 over Southend United at O’Rorke Park near Invercargill on Saturday.
Gold and Cox grabbed two goals each while the Southend strikers were kept at bay by a solid defensive effort from the Park back four.
When Southend did
strike, to give it some hope of a fight-back, it was mid fielder Ian Watson who
ventured forward to slot its lone goal.
Normally played at the start of the season the decision this year to play the less prestigious Charity cup knockout competition at the end certainly helped inject a breath of fresh air to the traditionally interest-dwindling tail of the long club campaign.
With all other competitions finished a large crowd, the biggest of the season, was in attendance and the two groups of supporters with their banter added atmosphere to the occasion.
The first twenty
minutes of the game was played at pace as both teams looked to gain the
initiative and it was the McLellan Motors Queens Park unit that did that when
Jonny Cox latched on to a through ball from Mark Pearson and angled it past the
approaching Southend goal keeper to put Park 1-nil ahead.
For some reason the teams dropped the momentum of the game and the crowd became restless as most of the play was in mid field and goal chances were few and far between.
Five minutes into
the second half Cox increased Park’s lead with a twice taken penalty kick the
first of which Southend’s keeper tipped over the bar but moved off his line too
early to do so. Cox easily drilled home his second attempt.
At the 20 minute mark Gold struck the first of his two goals when he cleverly side footed the ball into the Southend net to seemingly put the game out of Southend’s reach at 3-nil.
Not so though as Southend who attacked from the kick off immediately reduced the score line to 3-1 with Watson’s effort catching the Park defence flat footed.
The pace of the
game quickened at this point and both goalkeepers were called into action as the
teams exchanged attacking thrusts.
The penalty drama was re-ignited 10 minutes from full time when under howls of offside protests from the vocal Southend supporters referee Terry McNamara pointed to the spot for a foul on the encroaching Park player.
This time Cox blasted his effort high over the bar wasting his chance of a hat trick of goals but much to the delight of the opposition supporters.
Park was to have the final say though and when it did it was the “goal of the day”.A perfect defence splitting pass from player-of-the-day Matty Burgess was dispatched to Gold who shrugged off a Southend defender before sweeping the ball into the net with a fine strike to end the scoring and secure the trophy for his team with the 4-1 win.
