Oswaldtwistle Immanuel returned from the winter break to snatch a hard earned point from top of the table rivals Prince of Wales.
It had been a month since Immanuel had last been in action and in that time a mixture of dropped points and deducted points from the other front runners in Division 3 had meant that Immanuel could be crowned champions in as little as 3 games. However, with a double header against Prince of Wales and Stanley Ultras it was not going to be easy.
The match very nearly didn't happen due to concerns about the state of the pitch and the goals being different sizes. The referee and managers of both teams were left disgusted by the selfishness shown by the teams on Pitch 2 who refused to swap pitches. Sunday League football is hard enough without unhelpful bar stewards like that!
When these two teams met in December Prince of Wales went ahead in the first minute but that wasn't to be today. The rocks in the Immanuel defence stood strong for a full 2 minutes before a right wing cross was met with a powerful header that gave Matt Cook no chance.
It was a scrappy first half with Prince of Wales playing to their strengths and using their physicality well. The lack of recent playing for Immanuel showed as they struggled to put together any meaningful passages of play as they were generally outmuscled by the Prince of Wales side. But Prince of Wales never looked like making their dominance really count and despite having most of the ball it was Immanuel left rueing their missed chances at the break after Spencer came close to levelling the scores after beating the keeper to a long ball and Tom Leach twice came close from the set pieces that looked like Immanuel's best hope of a breakthrough.
At the halfway stage it remained 1-0 and the game was still wide open with both teams clearly remembering the game in December and knowing how quickly a game can change.
Parky shuffled his pack and added Fergus Heyes to the midfield in order to combat the height advantage that Prince of Wales had had in the first half and Immanuel started brighter in the second half. That was until the 62nd minute when a moment of madness from Stephen Mooring put the opposition through with 3 against 1. It was a mistake that Immanuel would have got away with against most teams but not today. The impressive Prince of Wales left back slotted home to give them the cushion they desperately needed.
Surely Immanuel couldn't come back from 2 down against Prince of Wales again! Moments later the game was back on. Mooring making up for his error by swinging in an excellent free kick that the Prince of Wales back line could do nothing about and it was one of them that got the telling touch to take it past the keeper. 2-1 and game on.
The scores were almost level instantly as Matt Malonie almost squeezed a header in from close range but it wasn't to be. Prince of Wales were on the ropes though and Immanuel could smell blood. As well as Fergus Heyes drink from Saturday evening!
The comeback was completed with 6 minutes remaining as Simon Hodgkiss lashed the ball home with his thigh, knee, shin and then foot from the edge of the box. The excitement was too much for Hodgkiss and he almost had to come off with a torn jaw muscle after cracking a grin in the celebration.
Immanuel kept the pressure on until the final whistle but were unable to find the winner but after being 2-0 down they had to be content with a point. A point that looked unlikely with half an hour remaining.
It wasn't a vintage Immanuel performance but it was another battling performance and the table does not lie. Immanuel have dropped the least points because of these battling performances as much as the games they have dominated from start to finish. They now go into next weeks encounter with Stanley Ultras unbeaten since October and they have no intention of that statistic changing anytime soon.
