Match Report | Ian Wormleighton

The visitors to the Riverside on Saturday were BAC Springfields in a fixture that produced ten goals earlier in the season. Bailey named the same back five for the third week on the trot, but had to shuffle his midfield due to the absence of Taylor Jnr and the injury to Twiname. Walton was available again and started on the right, Dre Maticheccia started his first game since November on the left and Bardsley, who had returned from Australia earlier in the week, partnered Wormleighton in the centre of midfield, with Hunt and Kippax looking to continue their good form from last week, up front.

The game didn’t start as quickly as last week’s game at Turton with neither side able to get a foot on the ball and retain possession. The away side had the first chance of the game though when their big number nine struck a freekick from 20 yards that thundered against the post. This seemed to rouse Garstang into action and a raid down the right hand side from Walton resulted in a good cross that evaded Wormleighton by inches only for the keeper to dive almost the full length of the goal to save from Kippax. The only goal of the game came from a great piece of individual play from Maticheccia who won the ball on the left hand touchline, dribbled across the pitch and dissected the static Springfield defense to pick out Hunt who finished calmly for his second goal in two games.

Halftime came and went and the second half followed much the same pattern as the first; both teams were fairly scrappy in possession and neither keeper was sorely tested. The visiting ‘keeper was probably the busier of the two pulling off good saves from Hunt and Kippax but Maycock barely had a save to make in the home side’s goal. The only scare for Garstang came on about 70 minutes when Springfields had a goal correctly chalked off for offside.

Gradually the game became much more attack versus defense with the home side seemingly settling for a 1 – 0 victory, but dropping a bit too deep for the manager’s liking. Despite the pressure Springfields did not manage to severely test Maycock’s goal and Garstang held out for the deserved victory to seal their second victory in a row. MoM sponsored by Collinson: Adam Swanwick – seems to be making the left back role his own after another solid performance

Garstang: Maycock, Southward, Baldwin, Miller (c), Swanwick, Walton, Bardsley, Wormleighton, Maticheccia, Kippax, Hunt
Substitutes: Waite, Twiname