FA Cup Extra Preliminary Round

Saturday 16th August 2008

It was on the same ground last season were Bacup’s FA Cup dreams were broken, however there was to be no repeat this time around in a game that although the score line suggests it was a close encounter, it was sheer dominance throughout the game by the visitors.

During a first forty five minutes of Bacup creating five very good opportunities to one for Atherton which Troy Hayden got the better of Ben Blundell before striking the post, surprisingly the half time score line was all square.

Despite the dominance of Bacup it was Atherton that broke the deadlock shortly following half time from a corner which resulted in a shot being saved by Thompson only to see the ball come back off an advancing centre back that was scrambled over the line, at the opposite end the unlucky Tommy Turner did well rounding the Atherton keeper but he managed to recover to save a goal bound shot. On 55 mins Bacup got a deserved equaliser although it was a bit fortunate when a Matthew Cross effort took a deflection past the keeper to get Bacup back on track. Similar to the first 45 minutes it was Bacup that were creating opportunities but failed to score more goals their opportunities warranted. Following a quality ball in from the right Tommy Turner headed against the cross bar, with the keeper beaten the rebound was attacked by substitute Dominic Slavin to put Bacup into the lead proving to be the winning goal and advancement into the next round

Manager Brent Peters Comments “Atherton Collieries is always a difficult venue, a ground which does not allow for free flowing football which affected our passing game. However the pleasing part for me was the amount of chances we were creating although frustratingly on the day pro-rata of chances created we should have had more goals. The most important aspect from a result point of view, we scored one more than the opposition which was good enough to win the game and that is what matters, the lads worked hard and showed good character having gone one goal behind, to come back and win a game they fully deserved to do.

Team: Jamie Thompson, Steve Sheils, Craig Chadwick, Ben Blundell, Warren Collier, Nicky Taylor (Jamie Rother), Matthew Hampson, Lee Stott (Martin Cosgrave), Matthew Cross, Lee Ellis (Dominic Slavin), Tommy Turner

Subs Not Used: Nicky Thompson, Matthew Andrew

Goals: OG, Slavin

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