Howe Bridge Reserves 3 Old Bolts 'A' 0

The omens were not great. Baz Ishaque took the A team on a tour of various Lancastrian backwaters before finally finding the ground. This was then followed by Jimmy Hark being M.I.A and defensive stalwart Richard Morris withdrawing late doors due to having a date with a Fridge (or possibly just a big unit). This left us with the bare eleven and our hearts went out to Wrighty, Neash and Rosie as they began to stare down the barrel of a full 90 minute appearance.

Things picked up though when the young referee popped up to give big Dave Hughes a hug during the warm-up. An explanation has yet to be received regarding that level of familiarity. That said, thoughts of the ref giving us a few favours on behalf of Hughes were unfortunately miss-placed.

Old Bolts carried on from where they left off last week, closing down the opposition and working hard to restrict them. The defence is looking like a solid unit. Mike Davids continues to show his class at the back and is supported well by the youthful and willing Chipper Timmis whose only weakness is that he needs more nicknames and also to understand the concept of kit ownership. Whenever the defence did get breached, the reliable Lee Roberts ensured that the scores stayed level. This remained the case until close to half time when Bridge"s striker scored a rather fortuitous volley.

For all their defensive qualities, Old Bolts could not quite get any smooth attacking moves going forward. Undoubtedly, the best moments of quality came from Jon Wright in the first half, who kindly took out time from modelling Henri Lloyd clothes to put in a great shift down the right flank.

Moving in to the second half, Old Bolts continued to work hard throughout the team and gradually managed to get some more momentum going forward trying to pick out the big men. Both Dave Hughes and Rosie kept plugging away but were hampered slightly from the alcohol fumes coming from their centre back. In order to strengthen the midfield and weaken the attack, Jules Ellis was moved up front. This had the desired effect as Andy Arnold continued to marshal the centre of the park well and a few more scoring chances were created for Old Bolts. Sadly, these all fell to Ellis who was denied on three occasions by either the keeper or his own woeful finishing (apologies to the team).

In between a few dangerous free-kicks from Arnold and a dangerously and ultimately painfully optimistic long range effort from Hughes and a disallowed Ishaque goal, the opposition sneaked another couple of goals in the last 5 minutes. This put an unforgiving slant on the final score-line and one that did not represent the effort put in by all 11 Old Bolts. There are definite positives to be taken from this game, not least that we will get the chance to play them again in 2 weeks and reverse this result.

The route to success for this team is to try and keep possession better (especially from throw-ins!) and crucially, find a way to keep dangerman Cris Beardall in the game. We will get better at that as the season progresses.

Man of the Match - Jon Wright – put in some great tackles, linked play and got forward to put in a couple of quality crosses.