Gresley Rovers vs Emley
Early goal ruins Gresley dream - Richard Whitehead - Burton Mail
Gresley Rovers hero Mark Bromley spoke volumes about the anguish of being dumped out of the FA Vase - without even saying a word.
The normally ebullient defender was a man haunted by the pain of defeat as he sat back afterwards and re-lived the Moatmen's 1-0 exit at the hands of Emley.
Bromley had stretched every nerve, muscle and sinew in Rovers cause in a truly heroic performance but it wasn't enough to keep the Wembley dreams alive.
Untypically he rushed away from the ground less than a hour after the final whistle muttering darkly that Rovers "just aren't nasty enough" to overcome the supreme tests offered by sides like Emley.
Even a glowing after-match testimonial by manager Frank Northwood won't ease the pain of the man who had a deep inner conviction that this would be Rovers' year to play football on football's most famous stage.
"Mark Bromley would have given blood for us if he had to. He was absolutely superb," said Northwood. "If everyone took his example we would never lose another game. The lad showed that although he is from Stoke his heart is really with Gresley Rovers."
But while Bromley stood out there were other heroes in red and white shirts.
Joe Jackson was not far behind in his tireless creative endeavour from midfield, Neil Lovell worked with ceaseless appetite for graft down the left hand flank and Steve Dolby recovered from a costly error to have his best game for months.
All this, though, was not enough to unhinge Emley's wily old Vase campaigners who made up for their occasional defensive lapses with a powerful cocktail of pace and creativity in midfield and up front.
They strung out of the starting blocks like a footballing Ben Johnson and scored the goal that put them into the quarter-finals, while Rovers were still struggling to come to terms with the big-match atmosphere.
Tim Devine shielded a throw in with his back to goal tight on the bye-line, turned sweetly past Dolby and, with everyone in the ground expecting a cross, angled a shot through Roy Sullivan's dive and into the far corner of the net.
The after match post mortems would have been of purely academic interest if only Gary Stevens had finished with more conviction when Martin Devaney's pass sent him racing clear only two minutes later.
But the diminutive striker inexplicably scooped the ball straight into the arms of keeper Ray Dennis and Rovers best chance of the match had been carelessly tossed away.
It soon became clear that such chances would be hard to come by as the game developed into a typically tense cup-tie battle of wits.
Rovers next real opening came three minutes before half time when Stevens superbly cut the ball back into the path of Brian Beresford but the striker's hurried shot from the angle of the six-yard area brushed just the wrong side of the post.
Gresley upped the work-rate noticeably after the break but as Emley's defensive resolve strengthened they were seldom able to play telling passes into the penalty area and a 49th minute Beresford header from Devaney's cross which Dennis comfortably held was just about their best moment.
Northwood introduced Keith Hill for Devaney and later Jon Laws for Guy Hall but neither substitution provided that spark of ingenuity or invention that they were desperately seeking.
It was Emley who came closest to scoring again when John Francis was foiled by a superb one-handed Sullivan save and finally in injury-time when Mick Carmody's trundling shot hit the post.
Gresley Rovers (0) 0
Emley (1) 1
Scorer: Devine 6.
Gresley Rovers: Sullivan, Bottomley, Dick, Hall (Laws 69), Dolby, Bromley, Stevens, Jackson, Devaney (Hill 58), Beresford, Lovell.
Emley: Dennis, Hirst, Fielding, Mellor, Codd, Green, Bramald, Francis, Devine, Carmody, Gartland. Subs: Burrows, Cook.
Gresley men-of-the-match: Mark Bromley and Joe Jackson.
Referee: M Brandwood (Lichfield).
