On a bitterly cold afternoon Kettering progressed to Round 3 of the EH O50s Trophy with a backs to the wall performance against Shrewsbury. The visitors were composed from the outset and pushed Kettering back but, against the run of play, Geoff Elliot scored for the hosts. This led to a sustained period of Shrewsbury domination and the equaliser eventually arrived through a well worked short corner. Kettering lost attacking threat Paul Brooker to a hamstring injury and had to survive a first half onslaught from the visitors. Nigel Parkes made a great goal line clearance to keep the scores level and Kettering were happy to go into the break at 1-1.
The second half saw Kettering still containing Shrewsbury but offering a little more in attack but the visitors scored the next goal through a short corner. With the rain coming down and the clock running out Kettering strung together a barrage of short corners and with 68 minutes on the clock Neil Freeman tied the game. Kettering held out and as the sleet started to fall the game went to penalties.
Kettering won the toss and elected to go first:-
Tom Sellers - miss ( outside right post )
Shrewsbury - miss ( outside left post )
Scott Mulligan - scores
Shrewsbury - miss ( miles outside left post)
Nick Cusk - scores
Shrewsbury - score
Paul Brooker - scores
Shrewsbury - score
Captain Tony Heath - scores to scenes of jubilation.

As an aside there can be few teams in this competition whose forward line contain players who are just old enough ( 80 and 60 odd) to be a theoretical father and son in an over 50 match!! A great afternoon and a resilient performance against a good side who will probably be wondering how they didn't win.

Into Round 3. As our skipper says - still living the dream.