Six goals, two red cards and a goalkeeper’s equaliser in Championship thriller

A Championship match that had already produced five goals, two red cards and a penalty saved was decided, if that is the word, by a goalkeeper. Bryn Edwards, the South Wales club’s 34-year-old captain, went up for a last-gasp corner at a West Yorkshire club on Saturday and headed in the equaliser in the seventh minute of stoppage time to earn a 3-3 draw that neither manager seemed able to explain afterwards.

The home side had led three times, through a 12th-minute penalty, a 40-yard run and finish from their winger Kofi Mensah on the hour and a tap-in on 85 minutes that appeared, with the visitors down to nine men by then, to have settled it. Each time they were pegged back. The visitors’ first two goals came from the French striker Arnaud Bellamy, who was then sent off on 71 minutes for a second yellow card for kicking the ball away.

The hosts lost their own captain, Danny Oyelaran, to a straight red card on 79 minutes for a two-footed challenge on the touchline, which their manager, Steve Harrop, conceded was “a red card in any era”. His side nonetheless went 3-2 up five minutes later and had a penalty to make it 4-2 on 90 minutes, saved by Edwards low to his right.

“I thought the penalty save was the moment,” said the visitors’ manager, Ioan Griffiths. “When Bryn saves that, he looks at the bench and he is already pointing to the box. We have practised him going up for corners precisely twice in two years. He scored one of them in training and he has not stopped telling us about it.”

Harrop was less amused. “We have dropped two points to a team with nine men, and I have told the players that,” he said. “Everything that could have gone wrong in the last ten minutes went wrong. But I will not stand here and say we were unlucky. We did not manage the game.”

The result leaves the Yorkshire club seventh, four points off the automatic promotion places, and the Welsh side 16th with two wins from 11. The home crowd of 24,118 was the club’s largest of the season, and 2,100 away supporters stayed on for a quarter of an hour after the whistle, singing their goalkeeper’s name.

Edwards, who had never scored in 412 senior appearances, said the ball had “hit me on the forehead and I have no idea what happened after that”. Asked whether he would be going up for corners again, he said that depended on whether his manager would let him. Griffiths, sitting beside him, shook his head.