I'l miss chance to play at Wembley - and two other finals - over harsh red card

The Littlehampton Town midfielder must watch from the sidelines as his Marigolds team-mates take on Newport Pagnell under the Arch on Sunday - just as he was a spectator for their Peter Bentley Cup final win over Newhaven on Sunday and will be again for the RUR Cup final against Saltdean next Wednesday.

Has any other footballer ever had a three-match ban like it? It's doubtful, and what makes it worse is that Kirkwood is such a universally popular figure in football - best known in recent times for leading the 5k4NHS project alongside Kevin Keehan in the first Covid lockdown that raised more than £50,000 for the health service.

He's had a great career that's entailed time at Brighton, from the age of nine to 16, then Crawley, Bognor, Worthing, Horsham, Burgess Hill, Hastings, Lewes, Eastbourne Town and Horsham YMCA. He joined Littlehampton mid-season and it looked like a day in the sun at Wembley would be his after his three assists helped Golds beat North Shields in the Vase quarter-final and Loughborough Students in the semi-final.

Then came the moment that ruined everything for him - a mistimed tackle on a Hassocks player in the RUR Cup semi-final resulted in a red card. The Littlehampton camp on the night felt it was harsh - and that yellow would have been punishment enough - and the club's appeal to a Sussex FA panel was rejected.

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Were Littlehampton already playing one step higher in the non-league game, which ironically they will be next year, Kirkwood could have requested a personal hearing at which he feels he could have put his case and his background across in a way that would have led to the appeal being successful. He says even the Hassocks player he fouled has tried to help his plea for leniency, but it has been to no avail.

So it is that on Sunday Kirkwood will not play nor even be allowed to sit on the bench as a non-sub. He will at least be able to join the squad in the dressing room and on the pitch before and after the game. If Littlehampton win, he believes he will be eligible for a medal. All a little consolation - but in a way, no consolation at all for missing out on what would have been the high point of 28 years playing football.

To rub salt into the wounds, it was on his 37th birthday he found out hopes of overturning the ban had gone.

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Kirkwood sounded emotional when he told us: "I do feel I was unfairly treated on the night with the red card. There was a genuine attempt to get the ball and I was just a split-second late. And I feel I've been unfairly treated since in not being able to have a personal hearing to put my case across. Littlehampton and many others have been very good and have tried to help me - even the player I tackled has backed me. But it's come to nothing.

"It was a boyhood dream to play at Wembley and I thought I was going to. It was only when I was back in the dressing room after getting the red card that it sunk in. I'd like to think my good character would have gone in my favour at a hearing - it's well-known what we did w