Goals Galore As U's Crash Out Of Cup

Date: 6th January 2024

Match: Blackburn Rovers vs Cambridge United

Competition: FA Cup - 3rd Round

Price: £10

The FA Cup is the oldest and best knock out cup competition in the world. A good run and result and it lives long into a clubs folklore.

We started the day early, 3 coaches full of fans leaving the Abbey around 7:40am. The journey up north was fine traffic wise.

We made our 1st stop at Corley services, just north of Coventry. I decided to get some breakfast and opted for a sausage,  bacon and cheese sub from Subway.

After that stop, we continued north and had a shorter stop at Knutsford services. While there we bumped into the Chasetown team, who was on there way to Liverpool to play Vauxhall Motors. 

Arriving at Ewood Park around 1:20pm I meet up with a group of friends who travelled up the day before.

Outside the ground on a cold Saturday afternoon.

Once inside the concourse of the ground, I got some refreshments. Opting for a balti pie and a pint of strongbow. Pie was good, though it didn't need to come in a stupid plastic wrapper. 

The ground was sparsely populated. Blackburn decided to close one stand and the upper half of another for the game. 1,600 Cambridge fans was behind the goal. A fantastic turn out for a long journey. 

Cambridge took the lead on 6 minutes when Jack Lankester superbly curled one into the far top corner, when Blackburn failed to clear a free kick.  Some lovely fast moving attacking movement allowed Sammie Szmodics fire home an equaliser on 23 minutes. Things weren't level for long and a nice cross was headed down for an unmarked Kaikai to fire past the Blackburn keeper.just minutes later. Rovers got there 2nd equaliser after Cambridge lost possession  rather cheaply allowed Szmodics to fire another home. He grabbed his hat trick in first half injury time when he was left unmarked when a cross came into the box. Great 1st half, was a shame that we couldn't go into break level. 

2nd half Blackburn had pulled themselves together a bit and was in much more control. The game felt like it was beyond Cambridge when Blackburn got there 4th goal of the game on 66 minutes when Sigurdsson smuggled the ball home.with 9 minutes to go Leonard headed home to complete the scoring.

Overall it was a valiant effort for a side who still didn't have a recognised striker, whom took the lead twice. However you have to defend better against the top scorer from the league above. For me personally I was happy to get another ground tick done to my total to 56/92.

Attendance: 8,311

Man of the match: Sammie Szmodics