SUTTON Town's hopes of bringing the Notts Senior Cup back to the town for a record 18th time bit the dust on Thursday night as the Eagles of Arnold Town soared into the final.

Ever since the 'new' Sutton Town took on the name of their famous old predecessors, their ambition has been to land that 18th triumph and move one ahead of Nottingham Forest who, of course, have not been part of the competition for many years.

But, with Forest's Grant Holt among the crowd, a single 65th-minute goal by Arnold front man Lee Sutton settled a tie which never came anywhere near living up to the history of high tempo contests between these two old arch-rivals.

Indeed, the Eagles' fancy-dressed and noisy fans probably provided more in the way of entertainment than anything that happened on the pitch.

Arnold were undoubtedly the better side, but even they found it only marginally less difficult to string more than two passes together than did the off-colour Snipes, whose performance belied their recent good run of results.

Sutton are not blessed with big support, and in front of a, for them, bumper crowd of 265, they had the perfect opportunity to put on a show and entice the casual visitors back to The Fieldings for more.

But they blew it completely.

The ball spent far too long in the air, and the match was punctuated by far too many free kicks which, combined with poor passing and distribution, never allowed the game to flow.

Arnold keeper Lee Broster was really extended just once in the entire match – and that was in the fourth minute of stoppage time as the Snipes pushed forward in a vain bid for an equaliser which would have taken the tie into extra time.

But had an extra half hour matched what had gone before it would have been a cruel punishment that the spectators hardly deserved.

Any incidents in the first half generally emanated from foul play, and Arnold's Chris Peet was lucky to see only a yellow card in the seventh minute for a bad foul on Craig Mitchell. That was but the first of several bookings for both sides.

The towering figure of Adrian Francis was always a threat for the visitors, but even he was often frustrated by the final ball as both defences kept a tight rein, with Stewart Ashford getting in a couple of excellent challenges for the Snipes.

Mark Clarke placed a free header from a free kick over the bar for Arnold in the 29th minute, and Peter Mumbley had a chance for the Snipes eight minutes before the break with a clear sight of goal from 20 yards, but Broster needed only a routine save.

After a dire first half the game threatened to burst to life on the restart. In the opening seconds Andy Haskins headed Fabian Smith's cross against the Snipes' bar, and less than a minute later Mitchell blazed wide of a gaping goal at the other end after Gerard Alonso had drawn and beaten Broster on the Sutton left.

Mitchell was wildly off target again after some enterprising work by James Dooley, and it was difficult to see where a goal was coming from.

But when it did arrive in the 65th minute it was Arnold who got it. Haskins crossed low from the right and Lee Sutton was on hand to sweep it home.

The Eagles striker could have added a second goal 10 minutes later but Leigh Walker, whose handling was less than impressive at times, did well to hold Sutton's near post header from a corner on the line.

The Snipes pushed to save the tie in the last 15 minutes but lacked a cutting edge and never really looked like scoring until deep into stoppage time.

Then Broster had to dive to his right to push away substitute Phil Massingham's towering header one-handed for a corner. But the flag kick was wasted by a foul on the keeper, and with that went Sutton's last hope of a place in the Meadow Lane final.

SUTTON: Leigh Walker, Whitehead, Magee, Fisher, Ashford, Dooley, Mumbley, C. Sutton (Massingham 62), Mitchell (Simms 82), Lee, Alonso. Subs not used: A. Jones, Westcarr, Jeffreys.

ARNOLD: Broster, Franklin, Brooks, Clarke, Peet, Hall (Thomas 90+1), Smith, Haskins, L. Sutton, Francis, Davies (D. Jones ht). Subs not used: Freestone, Law, Lance Walker.

REFEREE: David Sullivan of Retford.

ATTENDANCE: 265.

SNIPES MAN OF THE MATCH: Stewart Ashford.