FULL TIME: Blackburn Rovers youth 0 Chelsea youth 1 (From Lancashire Telegraph)

FULL TIME: Blackburn Rovers youth 0 Chelsea youth 1

8:53pm Wednesday 17th March 2010 in

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TOM Hitchcock's first half own goal has left Blackburn Rovers' under 18s a mountain climb after losing this evening's FA Youth Cup semi final first leg tie 1-0 at Ewood Park.

The Rovers striker, son of former Chelsea goalkeeper Kevin Hitchcock, was unfortunate to flick Jacopo Sala's left wing corner into his own net on 24 minutes to give the visitors a fortuitous advantage.

Rovers looked fired up for the second half, with Grant Hanley going close early on with two headers, one tipped wide by goalkeeper Sam Walker and the other cleared off the line.

The game was marred by an ugly on field scrap involving most of the players from both teams, with Aliu Djalo for Chelsea and Michael Potts for Rovers seeing red.

Goalkeeper Josh Swann brilliantly denied Danny Mills Pappoe in the dying minutes to keep the tie in the balance for the second leg.

Chelsea enjoyed the better of the first half with Hitchcock's own goal giving the visitors a deserved 1-0 lead at half time.

ROVERS: Josh Swann, Jackson Ramm, Josh Morris, Jason Lowe, Grant Hanley, Anthony O’Connor, Micah Evans, Jordan Bowen, Tom Hitchcock, Michael Potts, Jason Banton (Osayamen Osawe 75) Subs not used: Matthew Pearson, Matthew Urwin, Damilola Ajagbe, Besnik Rustemaj, CHELSEA: Sam Walker, Billy Clifford, Danny Mills Pappoe, Jeffrey Bruma, Aziz Deen Conteh, Aliu Djalo, Jacopo Sala, Conor Clifford, Marko Mitrovic (Ben Sampayo 90), Joshua McEachran (Milan Lalkovic 82), Gokhan Tore. Subs not used: George Saville, Aldi Haxhia, Rohan Ince