Ilkley Town U23’s 1
Frickley U23’s 7
Our Young Azzurri travelled to Ilkley Town last night as the hosts agreed to reverse the fixture due to our Dean WIndass event this Thursday (full details here)
Another game that I had to miss as the man-flu is still ravaging my limp body – I had to keep up to date with proceedings by following the Twitter feed courtesy of the mighty Ken Whitehead & watching for Ceefax updates. When Ilkley equalised I got the hot sweats as I had flashbacks of them ruining the 100% winning record of the Invincibles 2 seasons ago – as it turned out the Young Blues smashed home another 6 goals without reply to make it 5 wins out of 5 so no need to panic….
The home side started the brighter & they had a succession of early corners, which thankfully came to nothing, they were also getting around the sides of the our defence, creating several early chances to open the scoring.
We had started slowly and were certainly on the back foot in the opening 15mins, but a Joe Cooney corner was superbly headed home by Tom Cotson against the run of play. Ilkley to their credit, instantly responded and deservedly equalised when one of their central strikers skillfully turned on the edge of the box to fire into the bottom corner.
Frickley took the lead again in a carbon copy of their 1st goal but this time Joe Cooney’s corner was headed home by defender Lincoln Gleadall. The visitors had settled down now & started to get control of the game. Ben Jennings on his 1st start of the season made an overlapping run down the right to superbly cross for Bailey Cowsell to volley over. Joe Wilson then hit a thunderous right foot shot that struck the inside of the post with GK beaten before Bailey fed Joe Cooney who kept his head to coolly slot the ball past the advancing home stopper some – 3-1 Young Azzurri at half time.
The second half was a continuation of the final 15/20 mins of the 1st half with the improving visitors now on top, defenders James Nicklin (another one playing his 1st game of the season), Lincoln Gleadall, Wilfey Woodham and old guard Callum Beaumont were all dominant in defence. The midfield oozed class with captain Harry Alexander leading the way along with young Tom Cotson & the talented Joe Cooney.
Cowsell was becoming a real threat and he superbly crossed for his strike partner Joe Wilson to fire the ball home but somehow the ball got caught under his feet & the defence cleared. Tom Cotson influence on the game was growing and he superbly fed the inform Cowsell down the left hand side and he confidently cut in to fire a right foot shot past the advancing keeper, to score Frickley’s 4th.
Joe Wilson finally deservedly got his goal when he danced around the last defender & on rushing GK (both were sent the wrong way & had to pay to get back in to the ground with an outrageous piece of skill) to coolly slot the ball into the empty net 5-1 to Frickley – what’s the time????
Goal keeper Dylan Sefton made a great save tipping a long range effort over the bar as the home side tried to rally and they forced several corners which again came to nothing.
The young Frickley side were now playing their best football of the season so far – against a good side who must have thought what an earth had gone on. Substitute’s George Blaydes, Alfie Studd & Dwight Addai were introduced and Addai played a pass with the outside of the foot to feed Bailey Cowsell who again was clean through bearing down on goal only to be fouled as he went round the home keeper, clear penner. Dwight Addai duly took the responsibility and confidently fired the penalty home his second goal in his first 2 games for the U23’s.
George Blaydes hit the post late on after he had combined with the skillful Dwight Addai but then crossed for Joe Cooney to grab his 2nd & the visitors 7th to complete a quite remarkable 2nd half team performance from the Frickley youngsters.
The Bob Smith MOTM could quite easily have gone to everyone of the Frickley squad – special mention to Tom Cotson & Joe Wilson who were both outstanding but the award was jointly won by Ben Jennings, Lincoln Gleadall & skipper Harry Alexander who all performed well in what turned out to be a memorable night for the visitors.
Want to see them in action? Not long to wait as we are away to i2i Albion next week – date & time TBC
