On a beautiful sunny day in Launceston, Okehampton Argyle put in a dominant and disciplined display to bring home the Walter C Parson League Cup after a 4-1 win over Liskeard Athletic in front of a crowd of 534, writes Charlie Bond.
The game started off very evenly. Liskeard looked dangerous up front and played some testing diagonal crosses but Okehampton’s back four of Tyler Dawe, Dom Harnell, Harvey Newman and Sami Gillett were in tremendous form and gave away very few chances so that ‘keeper Aaron Dearing was not extended.
Argyle made their own chances going forward and played some excellent football on the ground and through midfield with captain Alex Gray in top form.
The deadlock was broken on 24 minutes when the assistant referee noticed a push on Argyle’s Jake Rowe in the box and the referee awarded a penalty, which was blasted home by Luke Alden.
Liskeard then lost their discipline a bit and a comment made to the referee at half-time by one of their players resulted in them starting the second half with a 10-minute sin bin.
Argyle extended their lead on 50 minutes when Luke Mortimore played in Brad Ausden who took the ball round a defender and fired home a fierce shot from the left of the box.
On 62 minutes a nice one-two move between Alden and Mortimore saw Argyle go three up with Mortimore firing home into the far corner.
Two minutes later, Liskeard’s Harry Jefferies was red-carded and shortly after they had another player sin-binned.
Argyle looked content to play out the game but had a penalty awarded against them on 81 minutes which Dan Jennings fired home for Liskeard.
However, the final word went to the Okes, when on 90 minutes a pass across their own box by Liskeard saw Okey substitute Ben Bickle pressurise the centre half, steal the ball and fire home past the keeper to complete the scoring.
Man of the match for Okehampton was awarded to Luke Alden for a terrific performance, but this was an all-round team display and everyone deserves a mention and their winner’s medals.