Despite a resilient performance against an in-form Radcliffe Olympic side, a hung-over Boots Wednesday finished the weekend in bottom place of EMPAL Division Two. The game started extremely evenly and while Toobs, Fletch, SuBo (still partially dressed as Treebeard with brown face paint) and Hawrylak coped well to contain the Radcliffe wingers, Boots found a lot of space in attack but were reduced to long range efforts from Luke, Pete and Patto. Pete swapped with Danny to the wing, and a raking ball from Sicky (who had an excellent and composed game in the centre of midfield) allowed Pete to race into the box and cross for Danny, whose shot was blocked on the line, with the ball falling to Bally on the penalty spot, but his well-struck effort was luckily blocked by the legs of the flailing keeper. Boots continued to hassle, and finally won a corner which Danny crossed from the left. The keeper, under pressure from SuBo and Fletch, could only punch to the edge of the area, where Pete expertly/flukily smashed the ball into the top right corner, prompting a celebratory pile-on (also an excuse for a lie-down!) Radcliffe raised their game, and following a build-up (that included a hand-ball) they were able to bundle home an equaliser, despite the best efforts of Phil and SuBo on the line.
After an even and good-spirited first half, the second was dominated by the weak referee and his lack of decisions. After competing well to win almost every ball in the air, Boots began to feel victimised as the intervention of elbows and tugs (weeeey) went unpunished, with the referee missing even the most blatant trips and head injuries. Despite seeing a lot of the ball in the first half, Boots began to start chasing the Radcliffe passes, and their pace finally paid off when a long ball cut through the Boots defence and their winger took full advantage to nudge the ball beyond Phil. Hawrylak then conceded a penalty as their nippy winger cut inside him, and after SuBo was booked for dissent, Phil produced an excellent low save to deny the goal. Unfortunately Boots couldn’t find the equaliser, with Danny coming closest from an attempted volley, and Radcliffe eventually put the game to bed when a long distance shot was redirected by their striker who was standing in front of Phil. SuBo won Man of the Match with another strong performance in defence, but overall the team effort and spirit was excellent and we just need to start producing that against the weaker teams!
