AFC Halifax’s previous 3 games had seen a sequence of thrilling victories which showed: hard work, determination and pleasure. However, Saturday's clash against Barnsley was not to follow suit with a 2-1 defeat against the South Yorkshire side.
Manager John Barker few changes to the side which had seen the team take maximum points from their previous 3 matches, however, with the absence of Buffon wannabe Dave Sutton, believed to be refusing to play until his fines are reimbursed, Ben Fawkes would fill in as shot stopper for the first half.
The game began and the two sides both started keen and came out fighting, Ashley Addy being the star man for AFC Halifax battling in the centre of midfield alongside Simon Noble who has found fine form this season battling hard and keeping the ball flowing in the centre of the park. It was Barnsley, however, who had the first chance at goal after Referee Lou Cassalino pulled up Addy for “coming in too fast†to a challenge. Luckily there was little that came of the chance and the ball fell straight into the Fawkes’ hands.
As the match went on the new strike partnership of Adam Ramsden and Marcus Stapley seemed to be linking up well, just without any end product. However, 25 minutes in Chris Peacock played a through ball to Stapley who was able to latch on to the end of it and fired home calmly to give Halifax the lead.
On 35 minutes however Barnsley made 2 substitutes which saw fresh, quick legs, which was proving too much for the Halifax defence and the Barnsley threat became more and more promising. On the 40-minute mark the fresh legs of the Barnsley attacker picked up the ball on the edge of the box and after a goal mouth scramble, fired it into the back of the net, equalising for the opposition. This was then followed by another Barnsley goal mere minutes before the half time whistle which saw Ashley Addy forgetting who he played for and firing the ball into his own net from a Barnsley corner. As half time arrived John Barker was still optimistic and insisted the team show the same fight and determination they had in the first half to get a result…..this was not to be.
Half time substitutions saw Stewart ‘bobbins’ Heaton swap with Fawkes between the sticks and Adam Ramsden being dropped back into his usual position of centre back to play alongside Adam Probets, who had an exceptional first half sweeping up the defensive errors and denying the attack on plenty of occasions. Tom Ashton returned to the squad after deciding he no longer wanted be a member of Halifax youth, he had been on a mission to find the Napoli ultras in Italy but after becoming scared he was soon home with mommy and daddy!
The second half started slow for both teams with no clear chances or determination being shown. Barnsley started to pick up the pace but it was nothing the Halifax defence couldn't handle. Stapley had a few chances on goal which were, as a standard 4.16 player, fluffed, the most obvious being a through ball from John Luders which ran to the keeper, however a handling mistake gave Stapley an open goal but a Barnsley defender managed to prod the ball out for a corner. The rest of the second half saw fewer and fewer chances with both teams showing signs of fatigue. Resulting in Barnsley claiming the victory.
AFC Halifax’s next game is on the 22nd October away to Grimsby where they can hope to return to their winning ways.
