Sankey Arms played their first home game of the season against a ten man Athletico team. The game got off to a slow start which now seems to be the standard for all Sankey Arms football matches, despite being a man down Athleticos were the first team to make a breakthrough on the 7th minute, due to some sloppy defending and goalkeeping on Sankey’s behalf. This is where Sankey Arms upped their game, many crosses from each wing, but to no avail, despite Neil ‘Crimewatch’ Wearing missing an absolute howler from around three yards, even Lee Calland criticised the miss, he must have forgotten his miss from around half of that distance last season. Athleticos managed to find an extra man and he was put onto the pitch on his arrival. As the 26th minute came so did a much needed Sankey Arms goal, Mike Gallagher threaded a ball through the defence to Neil ‘Crimewatch’ Wearing, who put the ball straight past Athletico’s stand in goalkeeper. As the 32nd minute arrived Dec ‘Scarface’ Wakefield capitalised on one of Athletico’s very own defensive errors, as the defenders were caught passing between one another. Sankey Arms 2-1 Athleticos. Sankey Arms continued to pile on the pressure on the Orford side and it paid its diligence with ‘Fat’ Gaz Boldsworth crossing to ‘Uncle’ Dan Heavey who only had to tap-in to improve Sankey Arms lead. As the half reached stoppage time, the Athleticos goalkeeper had the ball in his hands, and he seemingly didn’t know what kit his team was wearing as he threw the ball to Dec Wakefields feet who smashed it home for
Sankey Arms 4-1 Athleticos. The last 35 minutes of that half was described by official Sankey Arms news reporter, Sam Moore to be the best spell in Sankey Arms history.
As Sankey Arms were preparing for the second half, Dean Beardall d Mike Gallagher as the least likely player on the pitch to score due to some wayward shooting in the first half. As the half kicked off an Athletico player played a poor ball to no other than Frederico Macheda look-a-like Mike Gallagher, who belted the ball on the half volley from around 25 yards, the ball looked to be going straight towards the goalkeeper, but swerved away at the last moment to be Sankey Arms’ best ever goal in the history of this very match. Only a few more minutes into the game and Frederico Gallagher played Neil Wearing through for his second goal of the game, the goal was very similar to his goal in the first half. Prior to this goal Gallagher was subbed for the mighty Stu Wellstead. Instantly Wellstead was in a crossing position, but desperate to prove his talent to manager Sean McFarlene he had a crack, which payed off as the ball found its way into the net. Only mere moments later the overshadowed substitute Ian Given played a fantastic ball to the ever present Wellstead, who scored his second goal in 3 minutes. Sankey Arms 8-1 Athleticos. Sankey Arms decided to lay off on the onslaught and to conserve their energy, this decision almost went wrong as Athleticos went on the attack and narrowly missed, this frustrated the Athletico attacker and left him punching the ball into the ground with anger, this of course led to the usual mockery from the Sankey Arms touchline. On the 78th minute Athleticos put together a threatening attack which led to goalkeeper Karl Biggs to being lobbed and an Athleticos goal. Gaz Boldsworth responded to this goal immediately and used his speed and aggression to charge through the defence to make it 9-2. the last 11 minutes were overly tame from both teams but the last kick of the game was another goal from Gaz Boldsworth, to make it 10 goals from the Sankey Arms. There were many arguments on the touchline as to who man of the match was, the official decision was to be given to the dominative Neil Harrison although others think it should be given to Gaz Boldsworth.
