Frickley Athletic v Penistone Church FC

Recap

The Wezziecana Temple proved to be a graveyard for Church as the Azzurri put up a very strong showing, particularly 2nd half as we broke through their hol(e)y defence at will & could / should have had more goals – but we will take the 4 goals & the 3 points & be very grateful

The boys were straight on the front foot, pressing well & on 7 minutes a ball from midfield was met with a whopper of a miskick. Keelan Grist collected it & stuck it in the onion bag (not you Jerry) from the edge of the box. 2 minutes later the visitors were level – a foul on Green was ignored by the officials to allow a cross to be touched in. Shortly afterwards Charlie Preston pulled off a very good stop from close in.

The teams largely nullified each other until a mixture of ropey defending & more ropey officiating allowed Church to take the lead on 38 minutes. Straight up the other end & it was the away defences turn to do the hokey cokey from a corner & Alex Varley headed in from 6 yards.

Early second half & Al Keita breaks through the defence & is cleaned out by the keeper – nothing given remarkably! Then Lewis Binns hits a shot from distance which the keeper spilled but managed to grab at the 2nd attempt.

But we weren’t to be denied – just before the hour George Green played a delicious ball in & Keelan got a great contact on it to head home.

Matty Hughes punched a hole in the defence but his lob went just over & then it was Bennetts turn to do likewise but his shot went inches wide. Another break & another chance for Keelan but he shanked his effort wide

With 10 minutes remaining Szym Czubik created a great opportunity for himself – his shot was too hot for the keeper & Lee Bennett smashed the loose ball home

There was still time for Ben Hall to have a 40 yard effort touched over the bar, then Church managed to scramble an effort off the line & we had a chance from a corner go narrowly wide

A very wise man (John Watkin) once said to me ‘don’t get too carried away with the wins & don’t get too down with the defeats’ – very good advice…..which I’m going to ignore! This was an excellent team display coming off the back of a similarly strong performance on Saturday – what’s not to like?

Even though the Merry Matelot is still living the high life on the high seas, he couldn’t resist a stat attack – last night was the first time we’ve scored more than 2 goals at home since October 2020 & it’s the first time we’ve scored 4 or more in consecutive games since October 2018 (competitive fixtures). Hello sailor!!!

WEBMASTER MOTM – Strong displays throughout as you might guess. Defensively very strong. Midfield dealt with the early loss of The Colonel Collier & Nathan Fletcher did very well as his replacement. Green the best player on the pitch again & Kofi gave us another classic Kofi performance. Attacking was our strongest area – Grist & Keita were all over the opposition defence like a rash & when Bennett, Czubik & Hughes came on the standards were maintained. I could take the easy way out & award the Glitterball to the whole squad but I get paid a lot of money to make these difficult decisions so I’m awarding it to……the entire squad!

TWITTER POLL MOTM – the one that matters! Keelan Grist takes it by some distance – what a performance by him last night. Alex Varley in 2nd place with Kofi & Leethal Lee Bennett tucked in behind Virgil Varl Dijk. Czubik, Nathan Fletcher, Binnsy, Big Al & Charlie Clegg also polled votes. All the votes will be combined to give us a July / August Fans Player Of The Month – this will be announced in the next few days

Here is what the Gaffer thought about the evening – all the interviews are available on our You Tube channel

256 through the gate – very decent for a midweek game – we’d like to thank you all for spending your valuable time & hard earned money with us – if you liked what you saw, please come again, we’d love to see you

Next up – our first ever NCEL home league game on a Saturday……it will be September & the season started in July!! We host Yorkshire Amateur, 3pm kick off. COME ON DOWN!