Sudbury Town 2 King's Lynn 3
11th October 1980
John Bailey who has been in a FA Trophy final squad at Wembley got the winner as Lynn made a hesitant start to this season's competition.
His 81st minute goal was his first for the club and climaxed a second half full of talking points.
But is was not Bailey who turned the game Lynn's way - that belonged to his player-manager Keith Rudd.
After watching the Linnets stutter their way through 50 minutes and trailing by a single goal, Rudd came on as substitute.
The difference his presence on the field made was plain to see and he revitalised the team by example quickly scoring the equaliser and setting up the second goal.
It was obviously frustrating for Rudd, sitting on the sub's bench having damaged a calf muscle in training last week, to watch as Lynn allowed Sudbury to get a drip on a drab first half.
The first 20 minutes saw Lynn pushing Sudbury back and the home side looked nothing like the unbeaten leaders of the Town & Country League. But for all Lynn's clever play in midfield there was no punch in the penalty area and Sudbury began to show why they are stringing together good results.
Sudbury were not afraid to build their attacks patiently from the back and in Jim Thomson and Malcolm Crissell they had two strikers with a direct approach to goal. Crissell made the first goal in the 23rd minute with a clever run and his pass back across the middle was cleanly struck home by top scorer Thomson.
It was all Sudbury for the next ten minutes and the sliced through Lynn's defence forcing three good saves from Phil Ringwood. A second goal then could have doomed Lynn, but thankfully they survived to the second half when they would have the advantage of the gale force wind.
An indication of Lynn's intentions after the interval was shown when Chris Watts cracked a shot past Cobbold and into the side of the net. Rudd replaced Duncan Wiles in the 51st minute and almost immediately was pointedly disappointed that Pinkowski tied a difficult shot which went over instead of passing to either Rudd or Wright waiting in the middle.
Sudbury defence cracked in the 65th minute. They tried to play the offside when a corner was cleared, but Rudd wrong-footed them when he ran on to the through ball and was all in the clear to put in a neat chip over Cobbold.
Five minutes later and a corner from Bailey was touched on by Rudd to John Moyes. Taking his time, Moyes got control despite the close attentions of Cobbold and hammered the ball into the net from a couple of yards.
Now Lynn were well on top, but their thoughts of the next round were interrupted when Sudbury equalised in the 80th minute with a goal that should plainly have been refused for offside. Sudbury had Thomson laying injured in the Lynn penalty area when they started an attack and he was played offside, but there was no flag from the linesman and Micky Haddock had a free header past Ringwood.
The officials could hardly argue that Thomson was not interfering with play inside the penalty area, but they refused to listen to Lynn's protests.
Lynn's reply was positive, in the 82nd minute a centre went in from Pinkowski and when both Chapman and Cobbold missed it the ball bounced up to Bailey who guided his header past two covering defenders.
Sudbury on Saturday must have seemed a million miles away from Wembley where Bailey was with the Leatherhead team in 1978, but he had made a positive contribution to get Lynn into the next round.
Sudbury: Cobbold, Clarke, Appleby, Biden, Machailuk, Haddock, Catchpole, Mackenzie, Crissell, Thomson, Norman. Sub Bloomfield.
Lynn: Ringwood, Rider, M Wiles, Moyes, Wilson, Bailey, Watts, Wright, Pinkowski, D Wiles (sub Rudd 51), Chapman.