Stevenage 0
Birmingham City 1
Football League Trophy (Quarter-Final)

Match report written by Neil Metcalfe, The Comet

Stevenage's hopes of a trip to Wembley in the Vertu Trophy were ended late on by Birmingham City.

Jay Stansfield was the heartbreaker, the £15m man firing home with eight minutes remaining to finally break the stalemate and give the Blues a 1-0 win.

But while the scorer is worth more than the entire Boro team put together, this was not always a case of the haves dominating the have-nots.

And a chance for Elliott List, that wasn't taken 15 minutes earlier, will haunt many from the Hertfordshire side.

There were five changes from the win over Exeter City at the weekend.

Taye Ashby-Hammond came in for Murphy Cooper in goal while Elliott List, Harvey White, Louis Thompson and Jake Young replaced Jamie Reid, Eli King, Dan Phillips and Louis Appere.

Three of the club's youngsters were on the bench, Lennie Brown and Ellis Bates alongside Ryan Doherty.

Charlie Goode and King were missing due to suspension while new signing Brandon Hanlan was cup-tied.

The first half passed with plenty of intrigue and a few chances but no goals.

Birmingham had the better of the chances. Kieran Dowell and Luke Harris had two of them from the edge of the area but the ball on each occasion bounced through to Ashby-Hammond. and the keeper had to palm another cross-field effort round his post.

The visitors had the better of the possession too but for the most part Stevenage defended.

And they had a couple of half chances of their own, mostly to Jake Young.

One shot clipped off Alex Cochrane and spun just wide of the post while after a superb ball from Dan Sweeney sent him away, he had the opportunity to shoot.

He opted to turn inside, which he did well, taking the defender out of the equation, but hadn't realised there was another chasing back.

The second period brought an immediate increase in the number of shots, two in the opening two minutes.

Dowell had the first of them with an effort from inside the box that Ashby-Hammond stopped by throwing his hands up in the air. The ball hit them and spun behind.

Then Harris hit a low shot which the keeper needed to hold.

But slowly Stevenage started to get some sort of time on the ball and slowly they started to move the play up to the other end.

And for all the Blues' chances, there was none as clear-cut as one that fell to List.

Christoph Klarer made a complete hash of what should have been a routine clearance and suddenly the ball was at List's feet.

He poked it past the defender and then just had Bailey Peacock-Farrell to beat.

He could have slid the ball in or even took a touch and gone past the keeper but he went for the shot and hit the City man's feet.

Moments later he sliced another chance high and wide.

Birmingham were steadily bringing their big guns on while Alex Revell made a triple change with 75 minutes on the clock.

It seemed like penalties might be needed until a ball over the top suddenly found a gap in the defensive armour of Boro.

Stansfield jumped onto it and after doing well to control the bouncing ball, he fired home.

There was a late cameo from Doherty that was pleasing but that List chance was the one that could have wrote a different story.