Key news and reports: WEEKEND 16/17 JANUARY
HEARTBREAK FOR 12s IN COUNTY CUP SEMI
After weeks of freezing temperatures and snow, a thaw arrived at the latter end of the week causing pitches to change from frozen to waterlogged and although some teams managed to get back into action for the first time since early December two-thirds of this weekend’s scheduled fixtures were again wiped out.
Our 12s were in Lancs FA Cup semi final action in Bolton against Ladybridge Celtic, the tie having been postponed the previous week. The game was in doubt again until we were notified just three hours prior to kick-off that it was to go ahead but at a different venue. This meant that our manager Ryan Roberts had to contact all his players’ parents at the last minutes to re-direct them to a different ground before setting off. It was hardly the ideal preparation for such an important game and whether or not that was a valid reason, we got off to a shocking start. We were 0-2 behind after only 5 minutes, both goals down to defensive errors, and although a reply by Chris Clinch before the interval revived our hopes, another lapse at the back gifted the home side with further goal immediately after the restart. We never looked like getting back into the contest after this and Ladybridge added two more goals to run out 5-1 winners. Although this was a disappointing end to this County Cup campaign for our boys, it was a great achievement to reach this stage of a competition involving nearly a 100 teams.
Our 11s were at Blackpool Rd North taking on St Annes FC. In our previous outing prior to the big freeze we had a 6-0 win at Foxhall and our boys just picked up where they left off with a 5-0 defeat of our local rivals, hot-shot Kai Leyland bagging four of our goals.7-A-SIDEMost of the games in the Saturday morning Poulton Primary League were washed out as well but surprisingly Park View Rd was fit enough for our 10s’ Coulton Cup 1st round clash against Lytham Juniors. With both teams well in contention for the league title this promised to be a cracker of a cup tie which is what it turned out to be. James Cowburn gave us a lead in the A game only for Lytham to fight back for a 1-1 draw. In the B game we were ahead again with a James Allum strike but the home side leveled and it finished 1-1 again and a 2-2 aggregate draw meant a tasty looking replay.
