⚽️⚽️⚽️ McDougall

🅰️ Wills
🅰️🅰️ Annear

CSKA II wrote themselves into the club’s history books by bringing home the club’s first piece of silverware after 17 years of waiting.

In what was the club’s first ever final also, a first half Josh McDougall hat-trick won the tie, with the opposition left without answers.

Both teams entered the final on the back of disappointing league defeats, both losing 5-1 on Sunday, with AFC Shoemakers’s defeat actually costing them a league title. This caused a change in management in the week, Casey Houlihan taking charge. Alliance League’s top goalscorer Callum Key was unavailable, whilst CSKA II suffered an injury blow midweek as creative midfielder Ben Ragg suffered another shoulder dislocation. Dave Thompson passed a late fitness test following a scare on the previous game.

It was a cagey start in the late spring sunshine at Holmes Park, Shoemakers showing threats mostly from set pieces, with Josh Tank being called into action very early on. Shivan Solanki was showing to be CSKA II’s best outlet from left wing-back and repeated beating of his man really stretched the game a provided much needed respite for the defence. But Shoemakers’s persistence on one corner paid off after bundling home at the third attempt to take a deserved lead.

CSKA II’s response however was exemplary, the high-pressing duo of Josh McDougall and Connor Wills caused absolute havoc in the Shoemakers defence leading to a series of poor clearances that eventually allowed Wills to rob the ‘keeper and square to McDougall for an open net finish.