The entire Bacup Borough team should be ashamed of this performance which seemed to portray as showing a complete disrespect to the opposition by approaching this game with a blasé attitude, a situation which was evident from the first minute when Adrian Bellamy failed to deal with the ball coming in to him. He opted to pass responsibility by letting the ball run in behind him for his keeper, not anticipating that the Runcorn striker would read the situation by getting in between Bellamy and goalkeeper Horridge before shooting goalbound. His effort was eventually saved by Horridge at the second attempt following the keepers recovery.

Whilst this was a let off in the first minute, there was too be no let off in the thirteenth minute when Davey Luker playing centre back in this game did come out of the back line to contest an header with Gerrard Courtney, the ball was knocked down before being knocked into the space the centre back had come from which Bellamy had failed to close thus allowing Matthew Atherton the chance to attack the space before shooting past Horridge giving Runcorn an early lead which did set the Cheshire side up in confidence and resilience.

Bacup made a good effort in attempting to get back on level terms, first of all Kingsly Williams well struck shot was equally well saved from the outstretched Runcorn keeper, then following a Bacup corner kick Lance Ogunyode struck the Runcorn cross bar, it seemed despite the early set back Bacup were now beginning to build up momentum taking the game to Runcorn, however the situation was made worse on twenty eight minutes when Runcorn was gifted a second goal very much from Bacup Borough’s terrible play, Bacup won a throwing deep in their own half, the ball was thrown inside then for some inexplicable reason the ball went back to goal keeper Paul Horridge with the ball at his feet he was very quickly closed down, Horridge did go around the advancing player before seemingly slicing his clearance which landed at the feet of Matthew Atherton some thirty yards out, with Horridge stranded, Atherton struck the ball back goal bound which virtually trickled over the goal line.

At the half time break with Bacup two goals down the Management team of Brent Peters and Andy Hill in an attempt to salvage something from a game Bacup had totally tossed away through indiscipline, Martin Cosgrave was introduced replacing Midfield player Matthew Hampson and the team shape was also changed, however despite the fact that Bacup did have lots of possession in the second half Runcorn had something to hang onto which they did, Bacup for all their second half possession never once tested the home keeper which If the goals conceded were not bad enough, certainly the quality within the Bacup side proved not good enough on the day to break down a resilient Runcorn team that were certainly in know mood to relinquish the gifts they had gratefully received to fully justify their three points.

Following the game I spoke to the Bacup Manager who had this to say “Following such a good mid week team performance the lads today have big time let themselves down, this through attitude in how they have approached this game, they were in disciplined within our team shape which did lead to both their goals, the way that we did line up and the way Runcorn did line up we did have an extra man in the centre of midfield but one would not have thought so such was Runcorn’s endeavour, this and the fact that our midfield were headless chickens apart from Matthew Hampson who was using the ball intelligently however unfortunately as Matthew was our spare man in the midfield he was reluctantly the player that had to be replaced in order to change our shape at the half time break, on their first goal when their centre forward did drop in, the lad should have been passed from our centre half to our spare midfield player, this would have kept the back line solid, instead the line was broke due to our centre back dropping with him, this did enable Runcorn to attack that space left in order to score, but equally our left back should have also have dealt with that situation better to have prevented this. Their second goal was ridiculous, the amount of times we have instructed our players not to go back towards our goal which indivertibly does allow the opposition to put pressure on us and the amount of times they have been told to work the line on throw’s, not only have we not worked the line, we have gone back to our keeper which resulted in unnecessary pressure from which we conceded their second goal from.

Peters added “ Has a team we also did fail to adapt to the compact playing area of Runcorn’s pitch, on a large open pitch we like to make the pitch big, utilise the space for our pace and power, the Runcorn pitch is small and compact thus making it easier for the opposition to get amongst us, we should have had enough about us to have changed our game, we did fail to do this, so whilst we conceded two bad goals from our point of view, had we have changed our game on such a tight and compact pitch, then perhaps we would have got more creativity from particular our wide players, this did not happen and through indiscipline within our team shape we are found chasing a game from as early as the thirteenth minute, a situation totally unacceptable for a team that I consider to be one of the best young sides in our League”

Team: Paul Horridge, Marc Taylor, Gareth Wager, Davey Luker, Adrian Bellamy, Kingsly Williams, Hatthew Hamson (Martin Cosgrave), Robert Fox (Chris Ogunyode), Daniel Cocks, Hayden Paul (Arran Spencer), Lance Ogunyode

Subs Not Used: Nathan Tosum Matthew Wrigley.

Goals: -

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