An unorganised Sunday morning saw the Parkway fall to there first defeat of the season. Kick off was delayed to technical issues with the goals, as the nets were missing (Damo you are useless). There were also key names missing from the starting line up, notably Bradley who was away ineligible due to being an international player. Keeper D.Lavender has been sent to a private rehab facility for a week due to the amounts of alcohol consumed the previous weekend. Finally Neal who has had his head turned by the high tax free wages of Saudi and has gone on a six week loan spell to Al-Hilal FC. These absences meant that Parkway FC started with previously untested faces and had centre half D.Trattles in goal.
Despite the issues on the day the Parkway started the stronger of the two teams and put early pressure on the visitor’s goal, this paid off with J.Lavender being brought down for a penalty in the first five minutes. He managed to pick himself up to convert the penalty and continue his goal scoring start to the season. Parkway continued this pressure for the next ten minutes but failed to capitalise on a number of chances.
Around the 15 minute mark the visitors levelled with a good strike from the edge of the area following some confusion in the home defence between McCaffrey and O’Rourke. The game then went from bad to worse with the visitors taking the lead with around 25 minutes on the clock, there were call for offside from Carling in the Parkway defence, replays on MOTD later showed that the goal should have been disallowed with the winger clearly two yards off when the ball was played.
The parkway rallied after going behind and levelled before the break with a neat move finishing with Middleton crossing for Williams to score a diving header at the far post. A bad 15 minutes at the start of the second half saw the home team leak three goals, worst of which was a header scored at the far post, where C.Trattles should have managed to clear. Although three behind at this point, the home team continued to create chances the best of which falling to Pattison and Ellis, unfortunately the former dragging his shot wide and the later blazing over from in the box, despite this both players impressed on their debuts.
The home team’s reluctance to go down without a fight provided an exciting finish to the game, when with 15 minutes to go Pattison turn on the edge of the box and unleashed a powerful drive into the top corner. With some hope of getting back into the game Parkway pushed O’Rourke upfront and went three at the back and continued to press forward, this led to Walker sweeping the ball into the far corner after the ball was pulled back to the edge of the area. With a comeback in sight Parkway pressed on in the last five minutes only to be caught by a late goal with finished the game.
The parkway are back in league action next week, but might miss the efforts of Middleton who is missing and was voted MOM for his performance on the day.
