Lee Morris scored the priceless winner for Shaw Lane in the FA Vase wearing new boots chosen by his daughter
Lee Morris scored the priceless winner for Shaw Lane Aquaforce wearing new boots chosen by his young daughter Alyssia, who watched her father in action for the first time yesterday.
The goal secured a 3-2 win over Flackwell Heath and put Aquaforce into the quarter-finals of the FA Vase and three games away from the Wembley final.
It couldn’t have gone any better for Morris, whose father also won the half-time raffle.
He followed-up Shane Kelsey’s shot to score from the rebound – seconds after seemingly missing the chance to put Shaw Lane in front.
Morris told Non League Yorkshire: “It felt good and anyone who knows me will tell you that I am very superstitious and I was wearing a new pair of boots.
“It was good to get off the mark with the boots. I bought them especially for the game and I had looked everywhere for them.
“They are luminous green and I didn’t think I could pull them off, but I did. They’re the Nike CTR things, I don’t actually know because our lass picked them.
“My wife and my daughter picked them. She said: ‘that one there daddy’. She came for the first time today and seen that so it is happy times.”
Morris initally missed the chance to score as Flackwell goalkeeper Robert Bullivant made the save
However, he was there to score when Bullivant couldn’t hold Shane Kelsey’s shot
Matt Thornhill fired Shaw Lane ahead early on in the fifth round tie before Flackwell equalised and then took the lead nine minutes into the second half.
A deflected Joe Thornton free kick levelled the tie and inside the next 60 seconds, Morris had latched onto a mis-judged back-post, had his shot saved before being in the right place at the right time to hit the winner.
Looking back on the winning goal and the victory, he said: “I was surprised he had laid the ball back and I chased a lost cause and I thought ‘oh my god the ‘keeper isn’t coming’.
“But, because he went back rather than forwards it put me off and all I could see was a giant orange thing that was covering the net.
“I was lucky to get a second bite of the cherry to stick it away.
“It was a surreal two minutes because they had gone 2-1 up and it was do-or-die.
“It showed the character of the lads and as much as you don’t want to go behind, you do to see the character of the lads.
“They stood up to it and those two minutes were crazy.
“I think it is a massive for the club and for everyone from the chairman down to the lads who have worked on the pitch.
“I think the lads repaid everyone who put the hard work in over the last week to get the pitch right.
“It was the biggest game in the club’s history and it was a very good hard-fought win.
“We say it is the biggest game in the club’s history, but we keep overcoming these obstacles and as much as you need to keep level-headed, you can just see Wembley there.
“I think we have to be confident because we haven’t an easy game yet and we have overcome each one.”
Over the last ten years, Morris has been one of the most prolific strikers in Non League football in the north with countless goals to his name for clubs such as Buxton, Frickley Athletic, Staybridge Celtic, Hallam and Harrogate Town.
His form at Frickley during the 2003-04 season persuaded Harrogate and John Reed to part with over £10,000 for him.
Until the summer he had been playing and scoring lots of goals for Buxton.
Shaw Lane manager Craig Elliott approached him in the summer with the offer of joining his home-town club and taking on the role of player-assistant manager – one he jumped at.
“Towards the end of last season I had got a coaching role at Buxton and they wanted me to continue that,” said 33-year-old Morris, who has scored 19 goals for Shaw Lane this season.
“I loved it at Buxton, but the travel from here was a nightmare because it was taking me two hours.
“A lot of clubs came in for me from the Conference North down to this level. Soon as I met Craig Wood and Craig Elliott and heard about the set-up, I snapped at the chance.
“I think it is an amazing club that is going places. Craig is an excellent manager. He’s young and he knows the game.
“Craig Wood has backed everything we wanted to do. It is paying off coming here.
“I want to stride to get into management and this was the next step.”
Not that he plans on retiring anytime soon. Firing Aquaforce to the Toolstation NCEL Premier Division title and to Wembley is the current plan.