The story of this game was the fact that the Bacup defence was literally caught short and the excellent display from the Stone keeper David Dyson during a wind swept game in Staffordshire.

The main talking point from this game was the straight red card for the Bacup defender Gareth Wager who inexplicably left the pitch during a stoppage in play from which it is alleged that the player was caught short, this incident happened whilst the official was booking Lee Oldham for a foul on his counterpart, not many people were aware of any incident and were surprised when the Assistant flagged for the Referee’s attention, following a conversation Wager was called to the Referee and given a straight Red Card. A representative from the Press Association spoke to the Bacup Manager to quantify what had happened and the Bacup Manager Brent Peters had this too say “ I was not aware of any incident involving Gareth Wager, It is an offence for any player to leave the field of play without permission, I did not see Gareth leave the field of play I was solely focussed on the incident with Lee Oldham & his booking which was harsh to say the least, I can only imagine that Gareth was dismissed for leaving the field, other than this I am unable to comment”

If the dismissal of Gareth Wager was not bad enough, the way Bacup conceded a forty eighth minute goal which turned out to be the winning goal & then witnessing several stunning saves from the Stone Keeper in a game that Bacup were totally dominant must be so frustrating for the Bacup Management team.

In the first half Bacup had to defend a really ferocious wind which certainly had an impact in the game, almost at the start of the game Stone worked a good position with the ball being delivered from the left from which the advancing forward’s header went wide of the post, this was about as good as it got for Stone in efforts on goal apart from a needless clumsy free kick Bellamy gave away at the edge of the Bacup Penalty area which Debutant keeper Ryan Jones got behind to take well, at the opposite end of the pitch the Stone Keeper pulled off a stunning save from Aaron Walters, this was followed with another good save from Daniel Cocks following good play involving Marcus King and Aaron Hevingham.

At the half time break and kicking with the wind, Manager Brent Peters introduced Tommy Turner who is more accustomed with his back to goal than Martin Cosgrave who made way, Turner had little chance to make an impact on the game before his side had gone a goal down, with as little as three minutes on the clock the ball was aloud to be delivered from the left too easy, the striker got across his marker getting his shot off which Jones did well to block at the near post, the ball came back into play off him, Adam Turner was on hand to quickly get rid of the danger but for some reason he failed to react leaving the Stone player to come onto the ball to shoot his side into the lead, for a few moments following Bacup were shocked and until they got themselves composed again Stone could easily have doubled their lead, this Stone did not and again Bacup took the game to their hosts, Tommy Turner did brilliant showing good skills from which he got himself in the box cutting inside the bye line but his downfall was he failed to pull the ball back for a simple tap in, the Bacup striker opted to shoot from a near impossible position to have beaten their keeper.

Gareth Wager did well bringing the ball out of defence, this following a Stone corner kick, Wager found Tommy Turner who linked up well with Lee Oldham, Lee got his shot off with the keeper advancing towards him, his goal bound shot was agonisingly tipped away as the Stone keeper managed the faintest off touches enough to deflect from goal.

Despite the Bacup pressure time eventually ran out, no doubt once again the Bacup Manager will be in disbelief on how on earth they came away from this game with nothing.

Team: Ryan Jones, Aidran Bellamy, Adam Turner, Gareth Wager, Arran Walters, Marcus King, Daniel Cocks (Haydn Paul), Davey Luker, Aaron Hevingham, Lee Oldham, Martin Cosgrave (Tommy Turner)

Subs Not Used: Matthew Kemp, Aleem Salim, Matthew Wrigley

Goals: -

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