Bacup 4   vs   Old Bolts Res 4

The Reserves were looking to carry on their recent good form as they travelled to Bacup in near perfect weather conditions for football, this can not be said about the pitch which at best could be described as boggy!!

A near full strength Bolts side started brightly and were winning the battles across the park, the lively forward line of Neasham and Hardwidge were a constant threat to Bacup.

Bolts managed to push home their early good play as Andy Hibbert struck a shot from the edge of the box and it deflected off the defender into the net, 1-0. Then just a couple of minutes later Bolts scored again as a corner was skilfully flicked home by Ryan Hardwidge to make it 2-0 and Bolts were well in control.

Just as the Reserves were starting to play well back came Bacup and some poor defending from Bolts left an unmarked midfielder to head home from a long throw, 2-1 and Bacup were back in it and the long ball was causing the usually reliable defending of Thomasson and Hulton a lot of problems.

Just when Bacup were really starting to threaten a goal of sheer class came for Bolts from in form striker Ryan Hardwidge, a ball out of defence fell to Raz who from 25 yards out turned and struck a sweet shot passed the helpless keeper into the corner of the goal and restored Bolts advantage. 3-1

The last 10 minutes of the half was all Bolts as they played some good stuff but just couldn't find an end product that their play deserved.

Halftime 3-1 to Bolts and a deserved lead, however Bolts were told by manager Chris Neasham to keep playing and not to switch off as Bacup had showed enough in the 1st half, that if they were let back in the game then they could take the opportunity.

Unfortunately as seems to be the case with the reserves they didn't listen to the warnings and just switched off.

Bacup pulled a goal back 15 minutes into the 2nd half as more calamity defending left the striker to run through unchallenged and slot home 3-2. Just 5 minutes later it was 3-3 again poor defending let the tricky Bacup sub waltz through and finish well. Even worse was to follow as the capitulation continued, once more the defence went awol and Bacup went ahead 4-3 and Bolts looked dead and buried and but for a good save from Ollie Neasham in goal they would have been.

This save proved to be vital as with 5 minutes remaining Mark Thomasson made up for a couple of errors by grabbing an equaliser from a corner. 4-4. Full Time

A game of two halves and the reserves must learn to kill teams off when in winning positions, on the plus side it was nice to show a bit of fight and come back to grab a point when it looked like we had thrown it all away.