Dorchester Town 2                     Stevenage Borough 1

Awuah 56                                    Arber 60

Docker 90 pen

Stevenage Boroughs defence of the FA Trophy was brought to an abrupt halt when John Dockers last minute penalty sent Boroughs hopes of another Wembley final crashing down round them at The Avenue on Saturday afternoon.

It had appeared that Mark Arber’s goal on the hour was enough to cancel out Jones Awuah’s opener and send the game back to Broadhall Way for a replay. When the fourth official put his board up for three minutes remaining it seemed destined to end all square, but the referee was one of the few inside that ground who saw John White pulling on Wesley Fogdens shirt and awarded the penalty.

Borough had escaped a last minute penalty scare against Salisbury in the FA Cup earlier this season, but on this occasion luck was not on their side. In fact luck has been hard to come by recently as the sixteen players named were all that were available for Peter Taylor to choose from. And that 16 on show included newly signed youngsters Liam McDevitt and Zak Burke both made the bench despite starring in Borough’s FA Youth Cup match 48 hours earlier.

Although the first half was dominated by Borough they failed to find any rhythm, and at times allowed a weak Dorchester side passages of possession. Even so Borough managed to create a host of chances throughout the half, but were thwarted by some good saves and the offside flag.

The majority of chances fell to Steve Morison, the best one resulted in him putting the ball in the net, but the linesman had flagged him for offside. Early on he received a lofted pass from Ronnie Henry and brought the ball down wonderfully leaving him one on one with Darren Behcet, but his casual effort was comfortably saved.

Meanwhile Barry Fuller and Anthony Stokes both had shots that missed the target and if Tyrone Berry had connected to Craig Dobson’s cross shot then the game may have turned out different.

By the same token the second half was bossed by Dorchester. It came as no surprise when Awuah finally got the games first goal when his header from a free kick sneaked in via the near post. It was not long though until Arber blasted Borough level when Behcet dropped the ball into his path.

Alan Julian produced the save of the match when he palmed away Fogdens rocket. Morison again had the ball in the net but this time it was disallowed for a push. Two great last ditch tackles from Oliver and Henry though was not enough and when the penalty came Stevenage could have no complaints for not taking the many chances the first half had thrown up.

Stevenage Borough (4-4-2) A. Julian – J. White, M. Arber, L. Oliver, R. Henry – T. Berry (Sub: P Hakim 45), Z. Liptak, B. Fuller, A. Stokes – C. Dobson (Sub: D. Batt 74), S. Morison. Substitutes Not Used: J. Russell, L. McDevitt, Z. Burke. Booked: Liptak.

Match reporter: Barry Rust