Key news and reports: 7th / 8th NOVEMBER
12s' STORMING FIGHTBACK IN COUNTY CUP
What a start to November this was. We had a full week of frequent heavy showers with some thunder and lightening thrown in as well for good measure and darkness starting to fall every day at around 3.00pm. Both the Wyre and Blackpool councils closed their pitches due to waterlogging meaning the vast majority of scheduled local fixtures being washed out, and even some private grounds were declared unfit as well.
Of the few local games which did survive the Fylde Coast deluge YMCA were involved in three of them. Two of them were at Seafield on the Sunday, which was the first completely dry day for a week, and both were classics in spring-like sunshine. Our 12s took on Heysham in the last 16 of the Lancs FA County Cup and when you get to this stage of the competition there are no bad team left in it. Our boys started really brightly and most of the game was played in Heysham’s half for the opening 15 minutes but totally against the run of play the visitors scored twice within a couple of minutes of each other and we reached the interval 0-2 down. Our boys looked totally bemused. They had never before trailed by two goals in a game and it didn’t look good for us in the opening 10 minutes of the 2nd half as our boys continued to look shell-shocked. Completely out of the blue though, we were suddenly back on level terms with two quick-fire goals which seemed to totally deflate the visitors. As our normal rhythm returned we bagged another three goals to clinch an amazing 5-2 victory and a place in the quarter finals. Callum Hendry scored twice, including a penalty, which had levelled the scores. Wow! What entertainment.
A little over an hour later another great game took place between our Under 11s and title favourites Lytham Juniors Maroons. The visitors had only lost once in two years and that was when our boys beat them a couple of months previously so this had all the ingredients for a real tasty contest which what it proved to be. When the physically stronger Maroons took a 10th minute lead our chances didn’t look too promising. However we defended with real gutsy determination to keep the visitors at bay and with 8 minutes remaining Kai Leyland grabbed a superbly taken goal to level the scores and it ended all square at 1-1. This was a excellent game and a great advert for junior football. Our 9s, 13s and 15s were all sidelined due to unfit pitches. 7-A-SIDEIn the only Under 10 game played on the Saturday our boys went back to the top of the table by taking four points at Lytham Juniors with a 5-1 victory followed by a goalless draw, Harry Sagar netting twice. On the Sunday our 10s Girls were very unlucky to be pipped 2-1 on a mud heap at Oswaldtwistle after Rachael Houghton had given us an early lead.
