Under the lights on a cold autumnal evening is what proper footy is all about – & both sides gave us a proper footy match to watch
The first competitive home match of the season for our Young Azzurri – & they didn’t disappoint (they rarely do!) – & it turned out to be a really tight affair & ultimately it took one piece of magic to decide the game.
We started brightly & Matty ‘The Motor’ Hughes got in behind the visitors defence a couple of times but couldn’t find the decisive pass or shot to trouble the opponents keeper. For long periods of the 1st half the home side were under a lot of pressure with defenders Taylor Armitage, Josh Smith, Ryan Clements & Wilfey Woodham all standing tall with headers & last ditch challenges as the visitors looked to take advantage of their superior possession.
Woodham remarkably cleared a goal bound effort of the line with his head & his mate Josh Smith blocked the resulting effort with another brave challenge & we were relieved to go into the half time still goalless if we’re being honest,
The 2nd half saw immediate improvement & we started to play some better football through Tom Cotson, Tyler Sheard & our skipper, the talented Harry Alexander. Both teams were cancelling each other out, the midfield battle was now shared, so it looked like it was going to take something special from either team to make a break through.
Joe Wilson & Charlie Clayworth were introduced for the home side to freshen up their attack & Charlie skillfully broke free out wide to cross to Bailey Cowsell who magnificently turned his defender just inside the box & fired an unstoppable shop into the roof of the net. A finish worthy of winning any game but in a game where good defending had to be admired it was going to take something special to break the deadlock & this was a special finish!!
Frickley had to withstand 15 mins of late pressure from the visitors which they did with some confident handling from young keeper Dylan Sefton.
On reflection a draw would probably have been a fair result but no-one bothered to tell super Bailey Cowsell!!
Farsley showed the greater creativity but the Frickley boys just grafted & grafted & grafted for each other – they would have still been grafting now if the ref hadn’t blown for time. So to quote one of the mighty Ken Whiteheads favourite mantras “Hard work beats talent when talent doesn’t work hard”
The Bob Smith MOTM went jointly to Taylor Armitage & the skip Harry Alexander (pictured – Bobs the one in the middle by the way) who both were superb throughout but the award could have gone to any of our back four!!
If that has whet your appetite & you want to know when you can see the Young Azzurri in action again – we are at home to Yorkshire Amateur Under 21s on Thursday 17th October, 7.45pm kick off
