On a mild cloudy
evening we visited Blocksages to take on Stalybridge Celtic Blues in our final
league game of the season. Ollie and
Caleb were unavailable for us this evening and Sam started on the bench. Stalybridge started the game well and their No
31 was very prominent with his throw-ins proving to be a potent weapon from the
start and it was through one of these that Stalybridge opened the scoring. He launched a high looping throw in from the
right and the Stalybridge striker made a good leap to head home to make it 1-0
to Stalybridge.
Ladybridge hit
back within 5mins to level up the game when a slick pass and move between Ben
and Taylor resulted in Taylor scoring his 50th goal of the season! 1-1.
Stalybridge were
enjoying plenty of possession in the half and they were unlucky not to go ahead
again when a corner was met well by the Stalybridge player only to see it fly
over the bar. Sam made a great run from
well inside his half and dribbled past 3 or 4 Stalybridge players to find James
Y whose advance on goal was brought to an abrupt end by some good defending. The Stalybridge No 11 scored an excellent goal
right on half time when some slack defending allowed him too much time and
space in the box and he made no mistake to make it 2-1 Stalybridge.
HT Stalybridge 2-1
Ladybridge
Playing with the
slope in the 2nd half saw Ladybridge up their game from the start and early in
the half Taylor had a good effort just go wide after a good clearance from the
defence found him in an advanced position. James Y was then to test the Stalybridge
keeper from 25 yards out but he did well to keep out a good goal-bound effort. The Stalybridge No 19 was very unlucky not to
score when he made a good break up field only to see his effort go just over
the bar. The final goal of the game was
to be Ladybridge's as Dion battled well with a defender in the right hand
corner of the pitch to eventually deliver an excellent cross into the box that
was met well by James A’s pin point header that nestled into the bottom right
hand corner of the net to make it 2-2.
The last ten
minutes of the game saw Ladybridge pile forward trying to force another goal
with efforts from a Sam header and a Cole drive before Dion hit the crossbar
with a great shot in the last minute. Stalybridge held out and their defence
was not to be breached again as the game finished 2-2.
FT 2-2
Stalybridge played
very well and matched us all over the pitch for a good 60 minutes and they
thoroughly deserved a share of the spoils this evening. Played in a good spirit on a difficult surface
we've come away with a good warm up for the Challenge Cup final on Saturday.
At times this
evening it felt as though the lads were suffering from an end of season
hangover. After securing the league
title in the last game it didn't seem like they were up for it at times,
especially in the first half. However,
Ladybridge certainly upped their game in the last ten minutes of the match in
particular and if we can perform like this consistently throughout the Cup
Final on Saturday we'll give ourselves a good opportunity of picking up some
more silverware to end our season on a high.
Gordon
