Facelad found themselves away to a team fast becoming considered as their bogey team. Brotherhood play on a 3g pitch just like the one Facelad train on, however that seemed to be the only positive before the game kicked off. Charlie Muir, Facelads ever reliable goalkeeper, and Myles found themselves late to the game. This caused semi fit Ryan Comerford to start, Facelad to begin the game with 9 men and in a make shift side to boot. Despite these issues they started the game in a competent fashion, communicating well and showing great understanding and discipline in all areas of the pitch.
The first 10-15 minutes were more or less just keeping hold of the ball for the away side, possession football until the 2 remaining players required to field a full 11 arrived. Once they found themselves at the ground and sanity could prevail Facelad were organised into a 3-5-2 formation with 2 make shift wing backs in Darren O'Brien and Jerry Clynes. The majority of their success was coming from getting ball wide and utilising the pace of these 2 players. The opening goal came when Darren O'Brien went on a good run and produced a great delivery from wide on the left. This gave Joe Gash, who wasn't having as much joy in front of goal as he'd of liked up to this point, a lovely chance to tuck the ball away to open his account for the club. 0-1. The lead didn't last for to long though when Brotherhood managed to find a lot of space in the centre of the park on the counter. Jerry Clynes foolishly tried to rectify the situation and was dragged out of position attempting to close the ball down. It then only took a couple of passes to work the ball into the Facelad net. The two sides went in at half time 1-1 with it all to play for.
The 2nd half started similar to the first with the main aim looking like possession and the two sides looking to work each other out. It wasn't till around 55 minutes in Facelad started to probe getting more shots on goal and looking the more likely of the two sides. The sides were finally separated around 65 minutes in when Michael Alderman made an extremely positive run from the back, found the ball at his feet on the edge of the box and unleashed and unstoppable shot bent into the top corner. 2-1 Facelad, take a bow son! Ever the most humble of men Alderman was then heard to shout 'how good am I!?'. One for the academy players to look up to of course. What happened next though was perhaps divine intervention as a corner was whipped in from Brotherhood, Alderman was bumped when he jumped up for the header causing the ball to flick into his own goal, 2-2.
The game then found itself in absolute madness. One of Brotherhoods players went down injured so his teammate kicked the ball out of play. The referee had however already blown his whistle, he picked up the ball and signalled for a drop ball. Usually this would be performed with 2 players, one from each side contesting the drop. However the ref dropped the ball with no one around him and shouted for the game to continue. Jerry Clynes jumped at the chance and clipped a ball up to Darren O'Brien, who at this point was in his more familiar position of CF, took a good first touch and semi challenged by defenders struck a decent shot into the net. Opportunists or cheats? This the question and main topic of discussion from the game. Whichever side of the debate you find yourself on however you cannot condemn the reaction of the Brotherhood players who surrounded both Clynes and O'Brien and bombarded them with threats and pushes. The handbags were officially out! But the score was 3-2 to Facelad with the referee giving the goal. This chaos went on for at least 5 minutes before the situation was quelled and the game kicked off again. What happened next was even stranger, Comerford (player manager) ordered his players to part like the red sea and allow them to walk the ball into the goal. The referee pretty much blew up straight after that, he and everyone else at the game desperate to get out of an extremely weird game of football.
The positives from the performance; communication, a new formation in their locker, Joe Gash's first goal and the return of Tom Boyne who put in a really pleasing performance.
