Ghosts boss is proud of his players despite Senior Cup exit

Alex Walpole couldn’t hide his satisfaction despite watching his Fakenham Town side exit the Norfolk Senior Cup at the quarter-final stage on Tuesday night.The Ghosts suffered late heartache as Norwich City U21s progressed to the semi-final stage with a last-minute winner at the Daly Group Stadium.Young Norwich City goalkeeper Jack Ruddy – son of former Canaries legend John – kept the visitors in the game with some fine saves and, after the tie, the Fakenham boss praised his players for what he described as an “almost perfect” performance.”I’m proud of the players tonight, it was close to being the perfect performance,” said Walpole.”Emotions are always raw after the game but we’ve told the players they’ve got to take the positives from it.”We should have been out of sight by half-time. Ruddy has made a couple of excellent saves that goalkeepers in our league just don’t make.”We limited Norwich to half chances for 90 minutes and the only clear chance they get, they take. “It’s gutting for that to happen so late in the game as it never really gave us a chance to get a response. You could see how devastated the boys were when they scored, I feel for them.” Watched by a fantastic crowd of 485, the Thurlow Nunn Premier Division leaders created the better chances throughout the 90 minutes.Ruddy pulled off early saves to deny both Jake Watts and a glancing header from Josh Youngs while Joe Keeley struck the post as the home side dominated the opening 20 minutes.Louis Henman Mason also saw an effort tipped over by the visiting goalkeeper as the score remained goalless going into the break. Ruddy twice thwarted Watts in the second half before Jaiden Owen struck the late winner to break Fakenham’s hearts.The Ghosts now face big games at Mulbarton Wanderers on Saturday and Dereham Town on Boxing Day and Walpole is confident his side can carry Tuesday night’s display into those two games. “We have two huge league games coming up, and I’m confident that if we can perform like that, we’ll get some positive results,” he said.”The league now has 100 per cent of our focus, so everything will be geared up towards finishing as high as possible in the league now.” Walpole ended by praising the support of the Fakenham public.”It was great to see so many people at the game tonight,” he said.”They created a great atmosphere and I hope that they enjoyed their night. It was great to see so many regulars as well as so many new faces.”Hopefully, we’ll see them again in 2025. As a club, we thank everyone for their support tonight, we all appreciated it.”Fakenham Town: Andrews, Reynolds (Poore), Coslett, Sturman (Rasberry), Mayhew, Youngs (Densley), Bonner (Page), Henman-Mason, Watts, Robinson (Middleton), Keeley.