Match Report | Ian Wormleighton

Last Saturday’s match report was concluded by saying that current form would count for nothing going into Saturday’s cup clash with local rivals Wyre Villa and that passion, commitment and pride would be required on the day. Sadly for Garstang, it was the opposition that had these characteristics in bucket loads and the home side could not cope with it.

Manager Bailey made one change to the side that had dispatched Wren Rovers so effectively last weekend with Twiname coming in for the injured Walton on the right hand side of midfield. The players were instructed to play at a high tempo, win their individual battles, and not play too much football in their own half due to the bobbly pitch. These instructions were not put into practice and the performance suffered accordingly.

Garstang were behind in the first five minutes when Swanwick played a dangerous back pass towards Maycock that never reached its intended target. It was intercepted by an alert Wyre forward who drove into the box and rolled the ball across the six yard box to be simply converted. Tackles were flying in all over the pitch and the game threatened to boil over with a series of nasty fouls resulting in two bookings for both teams. Garstang thought that they had leveled around the ten minute mark when Hunt prodded home after a goal mouth scramble (below). The visiting linesman, however, deemed there to have been an offside in the melee, despite the fact that Wyre had three men on the goal line, and the goal was disallowed.

Maycock then produced a fantastic save diving away to his left to a swerving shot from outside the box that kept the score line at 0–1. Garstang were on terms shortly afterwards from a set piece. The ball was swung into the box and found its way to Twiname who got his foot to the ball before the onrushing keeper could get to it. Garstang began to take a little initiative from this and Kippax went close with a rasping drive after excellent work from Twiname down the right, but the home side never really looked like taking the game by the scruff of the neck.

The second half never really got going for the hosts despite some strong words at half time. Garstang never troubled Wyre’s goal mouth and the best chances fell to the visitors. Around the midpoint of the half the Wyre thought they had scored their second of the game when a speculative shot from 30 yards hit the bar, but they did not have too wait long for their winner as, shortly afterwards, a Wyre midfielder was allowed too much space and got another shot away from distance leaving Maycock stranded. The expected barrage from Garstang didn’t materialise and Wyre held on quite comfortably for their deserved victory.

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