Tring advance to the St Mary's Cup semi-final

Due to a fixtures backlog after their successful run in the FA Vase, Tring had two matches in as many days in midweek, entertaining Wembley on Tuesday night for a league clash, followed by a St Mary’s Cup quarter-final clash the very next night at home against Herts Senior County League outfit Chipperfield Corinthians.

It was another disappointing defeat on Tuesday night against Wembley, a dismal night played in front of the club’s smallest crowd of the season so far, 46 spectators.

Just like the previous Saturday, they conceded a goal in each half and failed to score in response.

Tring have not been big scorers in the league, but have been strong defensively and had one of the best records in the Premier Division but in the past three games they have conceded nine goals while finding the net just once and their once positive goal difference is now minus nine.

The first goal arrived in the 36th minute and came about after Tring gave the ball away far too easily in midfield and right-back Ethan Tyrer ran through a huge hole in the defence to score with a fierce shot.

Dave O’Connor and James Butler both had headed opportunities but failed to hit the target and Athletic reached half time a goal down.

Nine minutes into the second half Tring lost the ball in a dangerous position yet again and Tyrer was on hand to grab his and Wembley’s second goal.

There was more joy on Wednesday night in the cup.

The final score of 7-3 (3-3 after extra time) suggests it was an easy win, but that would do Chipperfield a big injustice because with three minutes of normal time left they looked destined for the semi-final until James Shaw produced a stunning equaliser to send the tie into extra time.

After that the visitors ran out of steam and a flurry of goals put a different gloss on the final result.

Tring’s other two goals in normal time came from a Jack Read brace.

He completed his hat-trick in the extra-time period while the other three strikes came from Luke Dunstan, Sam Jolliffe and a second of the match for Shaw.

Athletic can now look forward to a semi-final where they will play in-form Berkhamsted, the current SSML Premier league leaders, in a local derby.

Tring were due to be in action again last night (Tuesday) when travelling to fifth-ranked Biggleswade FC in the league before hosting sixth-placed Leverstock Green in another local derby clash this Saturday.