guiseley v witton

Pritch made a mistake after about 3 minutes, luckily their guy blasted the ball over the bar when through on goal. By rights we should of gone a goal down at that point.

4 points out of 6 against 2 decent teams,although it was dissapointing that Guiseley got a goal at the death.

Great support yesterday great performance roll on friday lets have another decent support.

Robbo_ wrote:

You’re right about that early mistake Robbo, but very wrong about T.B. just shading it. Second half when they came out strongly for 20 minutes there was only one of the central defenders who looked controlled and composed (and it was not T.B.)!

Guiseley had a chance after 4 minutes (the one you refer to), a half chance just before the break (when JK spilled it), and another opportunity midway through the second half to equalise when JK made a great one handed save. The player who scored their goal admitted after the game that he was not intending a shot, he was crossing it!

Generally speaking the left side of defence with Pritch and Liam is stronger than Tony and Cav, most of Guiseley’s second half pressure came down their left. The only contradiction to that being maybe Macca and Liam could have closed down the cross/shot, however to concede from where we did took something special/lucky!

They finished strongly in the last 5 minutes, we perhaps should have been 2 up by then, not only given the first half chances but Evan’s effort on 82 mins when he would have possibly scored had he lifted the shot off the ground.

Overall it was still an impressive performance, after a tiring week and on a difficult pitch.

Been unable to get on the internet so apologies for slight lateness in posting this.

UniBond Premier League – Saturday March 15th 2008

GUISELEY 1 WITTON ALBION 1 att. 411

Team: Kennedy; Coo, Pritchard, Barras, Brownhill; Peers, MacPherson, Lloyd (Brodie 63), Brown; Warlow (Evans 70), Thornley (Rapley 79).

Man of the Match – Dave MacPherson

For the second of the three consecutive away fixtures Jim Vince made one change to the line-up following the sensational win at Gateshead, bringing in Alex Brown for Steve Brodie. When rain started to fall thirty minutes before kick-off it soon became obvious that the condition of the Nethermoor pitch would not be conducive to Albion’s normal style of play, the already heavy surface gradually seeing vast areas turning into quagmires. However both sets of players shrugged off the atrocious conditions and somehow managed to produce a highly entertaining game of football.

On eight minutes it was the home side that first threatened to score when James Hanson got on the end of a nod-on but seemed to panic and skyed his effort. Dave MacPherson, positively thriving on the Leek Town look-a-like surface, then got on the end of a good move between Rod Thornley and Mark Peers to send a 25 yard shot narrowly wide. Witton were gaining the ascendance but were very nearly caught out following a corner-kick in the 18th minute with Guiseley’s own man of the match Simon Sturdy only a whisker over the crossbar with his header. Three minutes later though Sturdy somehow got away with a horrific lunge at MacPherson, Sheffield based referee Craig Grundy allowed a ridiculous advantage as Albion were caught off-side but then took no action against the offender!

Adam Warlow and Thornley then linked well but Piotr Skiba in the home goal, who’d performed heroics at Ossett Town for manager Steve Kittrick’s former charges earlier this season in our 0-0 draw, comfortably saved the latter’s shot. Jon Kennedy easily dealt with a shot from skipper Richard Dunning before Witton upped the pressure. Following a corner Peers curled a shot over before the 25th minute saw a fiercely driven shot from MacPherson slither through Skiba’s hands but the keeper had taken enough force out of the shot, combined with the muddy goal area, for a defender to hack the ball away, a foot from the line. Shots were raining in and both Peers and MacPherson’s efforts struck home players’ bodies. Peers looked to be in with a chance of breaking the dead-lock, he’d already forced Skiba to go full length to keep out his 20 yard shot before cutting in and sending in a goal bound near post shot that the keeper did extremely well to turn away for a corner. A Guiseley player was eventually cautioned in the shape of right back Nathan Hay and from the resultant Peers free-kick Warlow lobbed his shot just wide.

The opening 15 minutes of the second period saw not too much action in either area as the wet and mud took its toll. Cavell Coo though suddenly popped up but saw his attempt to get his first Albion goal drift past the far left upright. Thornley then got the better of his marker but from a good position sent his shot over the target. Albion got their noses in front in the 63rd minute when a corner-kick was only cleared as far as ALEX BROWN waiting 25 yards out and he sent a low purler of a shot through a mass of players wide to the right of Skiba.

The home side responded immediately but Hanson again was found wanting sending his effort outside the far post. With 15 minutes left Kennedy showed why he is far and away the best stopper in the League, diving to his right to palm substitute Lee Tuck’s shot out for a corner.
Albion’s own substitute Kevin Rapley’s first touch of the ball saw him win the ball superbly and set fellow substitute Tony Evans in on goal only for the former Skelmersdale marksman to shoot straight at Skiba. With six minutes left home defender Danny Ellis crude challenge wasn’t enough to stop the ball being played to Rapley in the clear on the right wing, this time though to the absolute disgust of the three figure strong following of Wittoners Mr Grundy stopped play to show a yellow card. The match officials then totally missed Peers being pushed in the back and receiving stud marks down his leg as he fell.

Albion looked to be holding on as the match entered the three minutes of stoppage time but when a free-kick was launched into the area the ball was cleared as far as Lee Pugh to the right of the area. Now in his own words he said to Albion defenders later it was an intended cross, if that was the case he didn’t do himself justice as he fairly smacked the ball into the far top corner of the net.

The coach load of Wittoners, who’d endured a time consuming journey through the horrendous traffic problems both at home and in West Yorkshire, only arriving five minutes before the start of the match, were then forced to have to wait until 7pm for a relief coach to be sent out. Nevertheless the four point tally from two tricky away matches in the week, coupled with the main rivals failure to capitalise, hopefully left them in a fairly joyous moods regardless.

" purler " never saw Alex Brown do a 25 yard headlong fall when scoring.:dry:

Let us all be honest and realistic. If we had been offered 4 points from the THREE away games we had to play who would not have taken the offer? We have four already with a game still to play, be happy.
WHS.

Jim, if you read this forum I know you were frustrated immediately after the game as we all were when I spoke to you but as I said then the game had finished and we need to get up and positive for the Marine game. To go to Gateshead then pull out a display on Saturday like we did on another poor pitch is awesome. I think we could have perhaps held onto the ball better in their half in the closing 3 minutes rather than go for goal run it to the flanks and corner flag but really that would be harsh for a set of lads who gave everything. Ok we missed some chances and their goalie was definately man of the match. He had to be otherwise it could have been 4 or five nil. Lets just get focused for Marine and again a result here would be great. Fleetwood still have a long way to go as we do and fortunately they did not gain any gound on Saturday. Our 5 remaining games at home on a good pitch give us an ideal launching pad to get another 15 points. Plus another 2 say from our away games. That will make it tough. If Fleetwood can beat that then they deserve it as that would be awsome to beat 93 points. Onward and Upward proud to be a Wittoner and to the younger fans well done on the right kind of noise on Saturday I even joined in myself the Zigga Zagga chant really takes me back when CHAD senior and I used to knock it out behind the goals in the sixties.

The_Wincham_Rabbit wrote:

[quote]Robbo_ wrote:

[quote]
Generally speaking the left side of defence with Pritch and Liam is stronger than Tony and Cav, most of Guiseley’s second half pressure came down their left.[/quote]

Saves our up-coming opponents a scouting trip…

Regardless of when Guiseley score, 4 points from these last 2 games is EXCELLENT. There is no reason for anybody to feel down.

7 points from the next 3 games will make it very difficult for Fleetwood to get near us, 9 would put one hand on the trophy.

View from Guiseley…

http://www.guiseleyafc.co.uk/Match%20Reports%20First%20Team/WittonAlbionH_150308.htm

and pretty fair summing up on their forum…

http://gafcforum.proboards56.com/index.cgi?board=firstteam&action=display&thread=1205593598&page=1