Newcastle 3-1 Bromley
by Roger Domeneghetti
at St James' Park

FOR seven minutes it looked like Bromley might, just might, be added to the pantheon of great FA Cup giant killers. It wasn’t to be. In the end, Newcastle had too much quality for their spirited League Two opponents.

There were lots of hugs between the respective management teams before kick-off. Bromley boss Andy Woodman had spent four and a half years at Newcastle as goalkeeping coach and had spoken in the build-up to the game of his respect for what Eddie Howe had done at Newcastle and Bournemouth.

The bonhomie did not last long, however. Despite making nine changes from the side that earned a famous win against Arsenal in the League Cup semi-final first leg in mid-week, Newcastle settled well. They looked calm and professional; they weren’t taking their opponents for granted.

Then, out of nothing, after just eight minutes, Bromley were ahead. Somehow Kieran Trippier, Lewis Miley and Sean Longstaff all conspired to lose out in a challenge with Cameron Congreve who unleashed a left-foot shot from 25 yards. Martin Dubravka had little chance as the ball curled past him into the bottom right-hand corner.

For a brief period, the home team and their fans were stunned. The visitors had their tails up and could have — should have — made it two five minutes later. Danny Imray latched onto a loose pass from Lloyd Kelly and surged forward into the space ahead of him before flashing the ball inches wide of the far post.

Instead, it was Newcastle who grabbed the second, arguably against the run of play at that point of the game. Will Osula found himself through on the keeper but couldn’t make the chance count.

The ball was only half cleared to Miley, who atoned for his part in Bromley’s opener by unleashing a thunderbolt past Grant Smith.

From that point, the game became scrappy. Woodman had Bromley set up well in a deep lying 5-4-1. They weren’t asking Newcastle’s defence many questions, but they were posing one to the home side’s attack: how are you going to break us down?

The answer lay on the bench, and at half time Howe brought on Anthony Gordon and Bruno Guimaraes for Harvey Barnes and Joelinton. Within four minutes, the Magpies were ahead after Ben Thompson brought down Matt Targett in the box. It was on the softer side as penalties go, but Gordon made no mistake from the penalty spot.

The dynamic changed. Newcastle are incredibly hard to break down, and rarely give up a lead at home. On the hour mark, Guimaraes found Osula just inside the opposition half.

The 21-year-old has had to bide his time since he joined in the summer, and he clearly had just one thing on his mind.

A pulsating run, a few step overs, a cut inside and a shot into the top corner later, it was 3-1.

All that remained was for Newcastle to see out the rest of the game, which they did with relative ease to make it eight wins in a row and avoid another unwanted third-round exit.

Elsewhere today, Tottenham endured the humiliation of being taken to extra time by Tamworth, an opponent nearly 100 places lower in English football’s pyramid, before winning 3-0 and avoiding one of the biggest shocks in FA Cup history.

Four days after beating Premier League leader Liverpool 1-0 in the English League Cup semi-finals, Tottenham’s team of established internationals toiled against a group of part-time soccer players whose main jobs included bricklaying, selling zippers and being a financial adviser.

A massive surprise was on when fifth-tier Tamworth forced extra time with the score 0-0, only for the hosts to concede an own-goal in the 101st minute and then strikes by Dejan Kulusevski and Brennan Johnson to disappoint the majority of the 3,700 fans inside the tiny stadium called The Lamb.

Tottenham manager Ange Postecoglou felt compelled to bring on his top players including Son Heung-min, Kulusevski and Dominic Solanke from the substitutes’ bench to eventually overpower Tamworth, which is 16th in the National League and was playing in the third round for first time since 2012.