Despite it being the coldest Sunday of the season so far the parkway had a good turnout, even Waldo turned up following being a drunken mess in Walkabout the night before and falling asleep on C.Trattles knee in the taxi. However I must say he was there more in body than mind, after D.Lavender had to literally pull him out of bed leaving the pack of pastrami he had been cuddling for the last 6 hours.
Once again parkway fielded a newly signed player in Adam Gell, who impressed on the day with a box to box performance. The parkway started strongly with Walker in particular causing the opposition problems with his driving runs into the box. This led to the first goal when he beat a couple of men and put in a cross come shot which was converted at the back post Bradley, which took him into double figures for the season.
The parkways second goal game from a well hit free kick from Walker which beat the keeper at the near post, however it was later revealed that prior to the kick he had told a team mate I’m shooting for the back post. Walker got his second of the game when Bradley released him to race away and claim his 8th of the season and continuing his goal scoring run. A pundit commented after the game that Walker really does look like a revitalised player this season and praise must go to the manager for bringing him into a more central role.
Just before the break the parkway switched off for the first time and the visitors worked the ball well down the left, with the ball being squared for an easy finish. This seemed to change the mindset of the parkway players at half time, who came out a little deflated and invited pressure onto the defence. The centre halves never seemed to get the grips with one of the visitor’s forward who was dropping into the hole to pick the ball up regularly. However D.Trattles could argue that babysitting A.Carling for 90 minutes took most of his attention, causing his performance to be hampered when dealing with the forward.
Only 5 minutes into the half the parkway had to make a change when Coyle pulled up injured, which meant returning veteran Galloway (Sibierski) came on to make his first appearance since resigning for the club. At first he found the pace of the game difficult to cope with and the visitors got some joy down the right going close on a couple of occasions, and well time tackles from D.Trattles and Middleton preventing goal scoring opportunities. Finally the pressure told and once again a ball squared across the box was tucked away by the visitors.
As usual the parkway seemed to play some of their best football on the counter attack with Bradley and the Lavender’s playing some good football at pace to create chances that were pulled narrowly wide. A mention must go to Bradley for his work rate in keeping the visitors defence busy and not allowing them to play out from the back. His efforts were rewarded when Galloway, who quickly grew into the game played a ball into the channel for Bradley to run onto and finish with an audacious lob over the keeper. The day was a thankless task for the Lavenders as large spells of the game were spent in their own half of the pitch, but they did the necessary to grind a result out for the unbeaten parkway.
