Saturday 12th March 2005 Winlaton Vulcan Inn 4 (0) vs.(2) 3 Garnett Bohemian

The Reserves proud unbeaten 10 match run ended in dramatic fashion in a titanic struggle against League Champions and leaders Winlaton. After leading 2-0 at the break the Reserves experienced the crushing blow of conceding a last minute penalty, the second contentious one they conceded in the half, to fall 2-3 behind in the 88th minute. The Reserves amazingly won a penalty of their own in their next attack, via centre half Adam Alexander who had been pushed up front in desperation. Veteran Martin Pollard kept his cool to covert and trigger wild but too premature celebrations. Unbelievably, Winlaton went straight down the other end and scored from a short corner routine as the Reserves went to sleep. A bitterly disappointing way to lose the game and end their unbeaten run.

To both sides credit, they produced an excellent game on a bobbly pitch in very windy conditions. Rapidly improving fresher Chris Pearce fired the Reserves ahead with a good strike from the edge of the box for his first Reserves goal and Adam Bell’s speculative cross caught the wind to sail in over the home keeper to give the Reserves a deserved half time lead.

In the second half, the Reserves were determined to attack against the wind and not sit back. This they managed to do throughout the half but yet again they were unable to kill the game off. Fresher Craig Allen powered himself into several excellent positions but lacked the finish while Adam Bell’s movement causing constant problems. Despite the advantage of the strong wind, Winlaton were restricted to long range efforts which keeper Kev Harty dealt with comfortably. Disaster then struck when a corner eluded everyone, only for the referee to award a penalty despite a complete absence of appeals from Winlaton. Fifteen minutes later, the manager’s leaving three up front at corner’s tactic was justifiably called into question when another corner was headed in.

All in all a very strange game in which all the Reserves players can be equally pleased with the way they played but distraught over the result.

Author: Paddy

Team: K.Harty, A.Smith, B.Ramsay, M.Pollard 1, A.Alexander, M.Laws, N.Heslop (Andy Bell), C.Pearce 1 (MOM), Adam Bell 1, C.Allen, A.Parkinson (T.Penn)