Workington res V Barrow Res Thu 28th Jan

From Steve Patton

Thursday night saw the reserves arrive at Workington for their 3rd game in a week. 7 of the team travelled up the west coast road expecting to be met at Borough Park by 7 other players travelling from Lancashire to make up the squad.

By 7:30 alarm bells began to ring and out came mobile phones chasing up players etc... the first signs of mayhem showed through when two new players recently signed from lancaster mistakenly travelled to a dark holker St thinking the game was a home fixture ! the fact that they had been given directions to Workington and a post code for the Reds home ground was to say the least disconcerting.

A further disaster struck in that Olly Clarke phoned to say his car with 5 players in had just broken down at Threlkeld on the A66.

After discussions with the ref & Workington management and Chris our regular bus driver who volunteered to go and get the players, a 60 mile round trip! we decided to start the game at approx 8:15.

A quick team talk chose a 3 3 1 formation and lots of ideas to stop Workington from scoring until reinforcements arrived. The lads were up for it totally, Neil Posslethwaite in nets, Steve Thompson,Scott Redhead,Sam Stevens,Liam Holmes, Richie Doughty & Ian Swarbrick started the game. A small but partisan crowd awaited them as they took to the field and the Workington side could hardly contain their glee at the prospects of this game.

Within a minute the side were 1-0 down highlighting the problems they faced. A wide pitch and two attacking wingers were a def problem. Neil Posslethwaite made many good saves but had no one to distribute the ball to. Everytime the ball was punted out it hit a mass of space which led to the Workington defence mopping it up and begin to build another attack.

Goals came at regular intervals and sidelong glances to the bench asking how far away the rest of the team were the norm.

Half time came and a fantastic performance saw us go in 5-0 down. One had to have been there to really appreciate the fantastic effort put in by our team.

Praise and respect came from the crowd and officials of Workington and the ref thought it was magnificent,the lads came off smiling and chatting and sat in the changing room discussing how to improve. Scott Redhead was inspirational with effort and instructions on the field.

Ref Nat Cox sympathetcally stretched half time as long as he could ! but still no players had arrived by the time the whistle went.

The seven trooped back onto the pitch and the second half begun.

After a couple of mins the coach appeared and one of the strangest sights I have ever seen took place. Over a period of 5 mins 4 players entered the field and all of a sudden the pitch looked over crowded and congested.Sorting out who was going where and doing what added to more chaos.

Eventually the game became a game. After 10 mins Olly Clarke scored , Steve Thompson hit the bar with powerful header and Ian Swarbrick had couple kicked off the line, the game became a hard fought contest and though it is possible Workington took their foot off the pedal this was now a totally different game,

The final score was 5-1 so I guess you could say we won the second half 1-0 !

Phil Morris,Adam Browne,Olly Clarke, Ben McSorley, Dave Dorran made up the team.

A situation that arose through no ones fault saw the Reserves complete a difficult fixture away with a lot of pride. I often hear negative comment passed about us in the town and on the terraces but no one should doubt the commitment ofthe team and management on a cold Thur night at Workington