Boldmere St Michael's vs Gresley FC
Boldmere St Michaels 3 - 2 Gresley
Scorers: Own Goal, Friel
Team:Simon Baldwin, Darryl Towle, Joe Swift, Lee Stretton (c), Sam Rose, Andy Dunn, Caig Tucker, Paul Friel, Matt Draycott, Chris Burnham, Sam Worth.
Sub: Dean Waite
After a couple of weeks off from competitive football it was good to get back into the swing of things this Saturday with a Challenge Trophy Cup game away to Boldmere St Michaels.
Unfortunately today we had four or five players unavailable due to varying reasons, Tom Read due to a 5 week ban for a straight red card two weeks ago, Dave Williams wedding and a couple of others with flu and work commitments which left us down to the bare minimum out of a 20 man squad.
We started the game well and in the first 15 minutes both sides were pretty much cancelling each other out with a few half opportunities falling to both teams. But on 25 min Boldmere broke through our defence with disappointing ease and went 1-0 up a little against the run of play.
We gathered ourselves and were on top for the next 10 min but again we didn't capitalise on our good build up play and found ourselves 2-0 down with another sloppy goal from my point of view.
But credit to the lads they kept going and finally we got the rub of the green when from our free kick wide on the left a good delivery saw one of their defenders take a swipe at the ball to clear but it came off the side of his boot and nestled in the near corner.
As the first half drew to a close we were playing some decent football working hard and chasing lost causes and it was this that earned us the equaliser.
A ball into their left hand channel by Darryl Towle looked as though it was going to run out of play but Craig Tucker who worked hard all afternoon chased it down and put their defender under pressure who subsequently gave away a free kick down by the corner flag.
A quality ball whipped in to the front post by Andy Dunn saw Paul Friel rise the highest and power his header into the roof of the net to make it level at half time 2-2.
The second half we carried on working hard getting across the pitch closing Boldmere down and pressuring them into mistakes. For the majority of the second half our keeper didn't have a great deal to do with us pretty much camped in their half and playing arguably some of the best passing football we have played for a while, but not really creating any clear cut chances.
And then with 5 minutes to go we got hit with the sucker punch, Boldmere flashed a ball across our box and we looked as though we had defended well and dealt with it but a little hesitation in clearing the ball gave them the opportunity to win the ball back in our defensive third and they took full advantage scoring the winner 2 minutes from the end.
Martyn Rowntree's Comments
Overall though from my point of view a pleasing team performance we kept our shape better defensively and kept the ball well at times.
