On a wind swept night with driving rain and a sloping pitch situated on top of a hill certainly this is not anywhere near ideal conditions for either side but take the wind and the rain away Colne throughout the years have mastered the slope and used it to their advantage, this game was no exception, Bacup defending the bottom of the slope in the second half playing against a very strong wind which did make it difficult for the visitors to get high up the pitch did pose its own problems, although IN the main Bacup were well organised to nullify any threat coming from Colne, this was up until the 79 th minute when Michael Cruz out muscled his marker to head the ball past Max Johnson in the Bacup goal, this goal was cruel for Bacup who really had put in an excellent disciplined performance, minutes following the goal Bacup should have brought the game level when good work from Daniel Cocks resulted in a good ball across the box from which Tommy Turner did connect with but the ball went agonisingly wide.

The Bacup Manager was not too disappointed after the match when he had this to say “ Playing at Colne on a brilliant summers evening is very much a difficult place to go with the slope on the pitch and being situated at the top of an hill it is one thing changing ones game to work with this and to combat Colne who through out the years have superbly used the pitch to their advantage, but it is another thing when in addition to the pitch both teams have to combat the heavy winds and a battering of heavy rain that was consistent through out this game but to be fair both teams did well in the extremely bad conditions, I will not be critical of my lads who played their part and in the main looked solid, and as much as the weather conditions would allow with the sloping pitch we were composed, if I have to be critical about their only goal of the game I would question why our other striker did not drop in deeper with the centre back who did put the cross in for their goal when he knowingly knew that his strike partner was deep also taking care of their right full back, when a team is kicking down the slope as Colne were and lumping the ball forward it becomes a numbers game when defending so to this end for me my other striker should have been contesting the cross, then following the cross I must question why their lad was afforded the header seemingly unchallenged but to be fair to our player Matthew Hampson he did hold his hand up by admitting the lad Cruz on this occasion got the better of him which is fair enough, sometimes as in this occasion we must give Cruz credit and with it he won his side the points, the big plus for me was under the terrible conditions I really felt the team did very well but obviously not the score line we wanted “

Team: Max Johnson, Adrian Bellamy (Tommy Turner), Ed Williams (Haydn Paul), Adam Turner, Gareth Wager, Arran Walters, Davey Luker, Kingsley Williams, Matthew Hampson, Lee Oldham (Martin Cosgrave), Daniel Cocks

Subs Not Used: Josh Lynch, Mark Taylor

Goals: -

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