Stoke Ramblers travelled to Derbyshire with just seven men but returned with their heads held high, even though they were denied any of the spoils by a last gasp winner.
Daniel Buxton, Matt Swindells, Lee Tawn, Josh, Chris Cope and Tim Doherty were led into battle by captain Ben Steadman and performed like lions to try and get a result.
With many players unable to attend due to injury or other commitments the potential IFA league game was downgraded to a friendly and Buxton kindly borrowed the Ramblers four players to make up an 11 v 11 game.
The players that came to the Ramblers made up the number but, with all due respect, thats all they did do as they offered very little to the Ramblers team, other than the goalkeeper who tried his damnest to impress his manager.
The game started with the Ramblers earning numerous corners but couldn't break the deadlock and were made to pay by the ruthless hosts when a corner of their own was hooked back into the box by an attempted clearance from one of the Buxton players representing the Ramblers, straight to an unmarked Buxton player who slammed the ball in off the post from 6 yards.
With a horrendous wind putting the Ramblers under even more pressure they did fantastically well to equalise when a superb free kick was floated into the box for Steadman to lead by example and bury a header from 8 yards into the roof of the net.
Buxton piled on the pressure late on in the half but were repelled time and again by the Ramblers defence, which consisted of four actual Ramblers stars in Josh, Buxton, Swindells and Doherty, whilst another great through ball from Cope put one of our borrowed players through on goal, but he blazed over from 10 yards.
At the start of the second half the hosts were back in front and looking to close the game as the defence withstood good pressure and other than the one crucial blip, stopped the hosts troubling the keeper.
Going forward the Ramblers did well so far but with the two forwards and a winger who were from Buxton they struggled to get the final ball and keep the momentum going in the final third.
An injury to one of the Buxton players who were playing up front for the Ramblers saw 'Tiff' the Buxton manager, replace the stricken striker, and after 5 minutes asked to play centre back as he couldn't play up front against his own side. Swindells moved up front with Josh moving to left back.
There was an equaliser soon after when a ball chipped over the home defence was latched onto by the alert Tawn, the winger beating the keeper to the ball and clipping his effort over the stopper before watching it dip into the net.
That left ten minutes for either side to grab a winner and unfortunately it was the hosts who grabbed the crucial fifth goal of the game when a counter attack saw a ball whipped in to the near post. With Buxton having being forced to go over to pressure the cross it seemed the ball in would be cut out by Tiff at the near post, but he stepped forward to allow the ball to run into the path of the same striker who had missed the one on one for the Ramblers in the first half but this time he made no mistake, sidefooting the ball into the corner of the net from 6 yards.