Blackburn Olympic continued their unbeaten start to the 2011/12 campaign with a 1-1 draw at home to Rishton in a bad tempered encounter on Pitch 4. Rob Plummer was still unavailable but the biggest piece of news was last weeks hero in front of goal Chris Tomlinson failed a pre-match fitness test.
Tamas Barath returned between the sticks after returning from international duty last week with Chris Mason dropping to the bench despite keeping a clean sheet last week against Greenfield. Olympic welcomed back Stu Clarke and he stood in at centre half for Andy Eastwood who is currently away with his country. The rest of the defence remained unchanged from the heroic clean sheet last week with Phil Scott, Stu Brown and Will Sharples. Joe Roberts made way for the returning Callum Sterling with Carl Black, Lee Grundy and Ste Round completing the midfield. Richard Sholicar kept his place upfrint and replacing Chris Tomlinson was Andy McCari.
The game commenced and it was end to end stuff early on. Rishton found themselves having a lot of possession early on not through good work of their own but everytime an Olympic player got close to them they went to ground and won a freekick. Olympic went agonising close when they themselves finally won a freekick midway in the opposition half. Stu Clarke took control and fired a great ball into the area but there was nobody on the end to stick it in... great chance.
Rishton stunned the homeside when the took the lead but it wasn't long before Olympic pulled it back. A Rishton corner was cooly dealt with by the Olympic defence and Barath launched a long ball over the top for Sholicar to chase. Sholicar pulled away from the Rishton defence with ease and as the ball dropped in the box with snow on it Sholicar out jumped the goalkeeper and headed from 18 yards... great counter attack from Olympic.
Half time and its 1-1 with Sholicar picking up a late yellow card for an attempted block of a clearance even though there was no contact. Great work from Sholicar down the left just after half time almost gave Olympic the lead. Sholicar picked out Sterling with an inch perfect cross the the back post but he headed high and wide.
As the second half wore on, Rishton became the likelier to score, and Tamas Barath was in fine form to make a number of great stops. Then came the flash point. McCari threw himself into a 50/50 in the middle of the park and caught the opposition late. He wasn't happy with the tackle and kicked McCari in the face who was still on the ground (type in YouTube John Hartson v. Eyal Bergovic for an exact copy). The Olympic players who were close were not happy and made that clear to the offender. Somewhere in the fracas that followed referee Allan Taylor who wasn't having his best game adjudged that Richard Sholicar was the perpratator and shown him his second yellow. The offending Rishton player received a straight red and McCari was also booked for the initial challenge.
With both teams down to 10 men the remainder of the game was open with probably the best chance of the game falling to young Callum Sterling. Good work from Ste Round on the left released Sterling who found himself with a one on one with the out rushing keeper but Sterling could only managed to put the ball straight at the keeper who gathered at the second attempt.
Olympic however showed great determination and dug in to grind out a result. Dave Lloyds man of the match award this week goes to the big Hungarian goalkeeper Tamas Barath. Next game Tuesday night against Hindle Arms. Bring it on...........................................
