Tuesday 13th September 2022
UHLSPORT UNITED COUNTIES LEAGUE – PREMIER DIVISION SOUTH
MILTON KEYNES IRISH v COGENHOE UNITED
MK Irish Centre,
Manor Fields,
Watling Street,
Fenny Stratford,
Milton Keynes.
MK2 2HS
KO 7-45 pm
The Cooks return to action following Saturday’s F.A decision to suspend all football with a trip to Fenny Stratford on Tuesday night. Our hosts are playing their first season in the UCL as their current guise, although they do have history in our league as the Buckingham Town part of the pre-merger with Unite MK played in our league for many years.
The Irish have made a good start to life in the UCL after moving sideways from the Spartan South Midlands League in the summer and currently sit in sixth place, two places and one point above the Cooks, although they have played a game less. Last time out they crushed Eynesbury 4-0, just a few days after we had been held 1-1 by the Rovers, although MK had home advantage in their game. Ryan Smith opened the scoring on 11 minutes and Powfil Raposo made it two before the break. The second half continued in the same way with Smith bagging his second after 72 minutes and sub Luke Gardner rounded off the scoring with the fourth five minutes later. Their other two league wins were closer affairs with a 2-0 home success over Easington Sports which was followed by a 1-0 victory at Long Buckby’s Station Road ground. They are still in the F.A Vase too after beating their former SSML opponents Arlesey Town 1-0 at the Manor Fields. Whilst most of their players will be unfamiliar to the Cooks, one name we all know is Dom Lawless, who has been prolific for a number of clubs in recent years, but so far he has failed to score in any of his seven appearances this season. Irish are managed by Terry Shrieves, who as a player was something as a legend of Northamptonshire football to people of my age and upwards.
They have suffered two defeats so far in the league, both by a single goal. The first coming on the opening day when Coventry United returned home with the points, the second coming on the road in Godmanchester. They have also lost twice in cup competitions. 2-4 at home to Tilbury and more recently and much more disappointingly, 0-3 at home to lower grade Amersham Town.
The Cooks go into the game five unbeaten, with our last outing being the dogged 2-1 win at Coventry United in which Ben Gough and Jessi Obeng had put us two-up before the Red & Green’s stoppage time consolation.
We are still waiting to hear from the league when our KO Cup game at home to Rainworth MW will be played following Saturday’s cancellation, but logic would say this will be on a Saturday as Mansfield to Cogenhoe on a Tuesday night would be one very long journey.
COUNTY CUP UPDATE.
One fixture update we do have is that we have been re-instated into the Northants F.A Hillier Senior Cup following the removal of AFC Rushden & Diamonds from the competition after they had played a player without international clearance in our pre-season game. That one ended 1-1 after 90 minutes, but Diamonds had won the penalty shootout 6-5 in sudden death. Because of this we will now host our UCL PDS rivals Desborough Town in the next round with the game being played at Compton Park on Tuesday 11th October with the usual 7-45pm kick off.
The full Quarter-Final draw is;
Peterborough Sports v Wellingborough Town
Corby Town v Winner of Long Buckby v Peterborough United U23
Cogenhoe United v Desborough Town
Daventry Town v Kettering Town.
