KEY POINTS:
Glenfield Rovers and East Coast Bays, who have been trying for more than 40 years to win New Zealand's oldest soccer trophy, have both advanced to the semifinals of the Chatham Cup for the first time.
They did it in style. Glenfield downed the defending champions, Central United 3-2, with a goal in the 90th minute, while East Coast Bays walloped three-time winners Waitakere City 6-0.
They will be joined in the semifinals by Nelson Suburbs, who beat Western Suburbs (Wellington) 2-1 with a goal in the last minute of extra time, and Dunedin Technical, who downed Miramar Rangers 2-1. The draw will be made tomorrow for the games on the weekend of August 16-17.
The success of the two North Harbour clubs shows the muddled thinking of their federation, which prevented them from playing in the Northern Regional League this season.
"We are basically the minor league side, while Central are one of the most respected teams in the country," said Glenfield coach Andy Moore.
"We lost a lot of senior players, disillusioned that we weren't playing in the premier league and we started with only four back from last year.
"But in the past few weeks we've come together as a team and bonded and today they showed so much character to come back from 2-0 down and win. I said if we could win today there's no reason why we can't go and win the cup."
And that would be a mighty achievement for a team formed by workers from the Chelsea Sugar Works - and originally carrying the famous Chelsea name.
Central, fielding several players from the Auckland City NZFC team, were quickly shown there would be no walkover when goalie Richard Gillespie had to make two good saves at the feet of Fero Mudrik.
But after 14 minutes they opened the scoring when Sam Mathews carved through the defence and presented David Richmond with a simple tap-in. Twenty minutes later it was 2-0 when Grant Young's left foot capitalised on his original blocked shot.
A poor clearance allowed Kuba Sinkora to make it 2-1 at halftime and Mudrik's header from a Danny Donegan freekick early in the second half set up a thrilling finale.
Both sides missed chances and it was left to Jason Hicks, who had come on as a substitute midway through the half, to outflank the defence on the left and capitalise on a cross from Sinkora for the winner.
East Coast Bays made no race of their clash with Waitakere, whose cause wasn't helped by the sending-off of Stu Hogg after 35 minutes and Ash Solly after 68 minutes.
Daniel Peat fastened on to a through ball from Leigh Kenyon to open the scoring in the 23rd minute and Kenyon volleyed a second four minutes later for a 2-0 lead at halftime.
One way traffic in the second spell produced goals for Jack Beguely (2), Joe Bresnahan and George Suri, while Suri also blew a chance from two metres and Peat missed a twice-taken penalty.
