Vodkat North West Counties Premier League

Monday 13th April 2009

Whilst this was a holiday fixture people could be excused for thinking it was pantomime season after witnessing three out of their four goals that the Bacup Borough Manager Brent Peters described as kamikaze defending.

In the opening fourteen minutes Bacup actually started well with Rhodri Giggs back after an injury lay off causing the Nelson defence problems assisted by Tommy Turner, several Bacup attacks were mounted but desperate defending ensured that Bacup's bright start came to nothing. On fifteen minutes and following yet another Bacup attack when Kyle Harrop broke into the box but saw his effort go wildly off the mark leading Nelson to knock the ball long up the pitch from which Nelson’s Sam Heap got onto the end of the ball before turning Jacub Wood inside and out before finishing past Melville.

This goal against the run of play then started what can only be described as the pantomime season having come early, by the time the clock had got to twenty one minutes Nelson were two goals up but what a shambles from the home sides point of view, first of all keeper Phil Melville raced off his line to get to the ball but failed to make it, the ball ended up with Bacup defender Jacub Woods, with the Bacup goal still unattended instead of Wood just clearing the ball he somehow tried to turn before quickly trying to clear by which time he had been closed down by Kusaloka, the ball struck Kusaloka before rebounding to his strike partner Sam Heap who tapped the ball into the empty net.

There was no doubt this rocked Bacup with Nelson yet again getting in behind the Bacup rear guard and could easily have doubled their score, Manager Brent Peters left his seat in the stand to make some positional changes which did ensure the visitors were not going to get any more gifts prior to the half time break.

Following the half time break it was no surprise that Jacub Wood was to be replaced with Martin Cosgrave, it was obviously one of those games for Jacub when you wanted the ground to swallow you up as everything he did was not coming off, however the second half was only fourteen minutes gone when the curtain again came up for the pantomime to begin, in fact Nelson could not believe their luck when Kyle Harrop played a back pass back to his keeper Phil Melville, the keeper could have put his foot through the ball first time instead he seemed to invite the closing threat of Krystian Liptrot, Melville in control of the ball dropped his shoulder to go one way and then take the ball out the opposite way, the problem being he seemed to top the ball from which Liptrot dispossessed the ball before guiding it into the net, talk about grounds wanting to swallow up players, on eighty five minutes to add wounds to a bad day for keeper Phil Melville Nelson won a free kick some thirty five yards out, the ball was struck with power and pace, Melville got behind the ball but agonisingly the ball bounced out off his body leaving Isaac Kusaloka to capitalise on another mistake leaving Melville and the team to lick their wounds following yet another disappointing result.

The Manager had this to say “ For Phil Melville to make the mistakes collectively as he has done will be every Preston Guild, Phil is experienced enough and man enough to hold his hands up so there does not need to be a comment from me on that score, what I will comment on is that Davey Luker, Kyle Harrop, Jamie Rother, and Jamie Byrne apart, I felt the others were not up for the fight once adversity had come into our game, Nelson to be fair worked hard, it was their hard work that ultimately got them their goals, yes they were mistakes the difference being on the day their keeper does make a mistake and we do not capitalise, but as soon as our keeper makes one they pounce, that to me is called hunger, they were up for it more and wanted it more than we did.

We started well but heads dropped once we conceded our second goal, on the day we produced nothing of any quality from midfield to give our strikers a chance, this apart our strikers failed to pick up any scraps unlike Nelson who got scraps on three occasions and grabbed them whilst they could this ultimately won them the game “

Team: Phil Melville, Jamie Rother, Sean Roscoe (Jamie Byrne), Davey Luker, Jacub Wood (Martin Cosgrave), Steve Smith, Matthew Hampson, Kyle Harrop, Rhodri Giggs, Tommy Turner, Warren Collier

Subs Not Used: Lawrence Greenhalgh Matthew Andrew

Goals:

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