Fleetwood Town went into the Lancashire FA Under-18 Youth Cup Final with good expectations against their opponents, Nelson.
The Town scholars benefit from full-time education and football training and it would be their fitness and composure which would prove a big asset over Nelson.
Town, handed the home status at the neutral Country Ground, played in the traditional red and white strip, Nelson in all blue.
Having already won the competition in the 2009/10 season, Fleetwood were keen to regain the trophy. It was a tough run-in to the final for Town, having to play 5 games to reach the climax.
It was a positive start for Town with them having the majority of possession early on with Nelson happy to sit back and hit on the counter-attack. It took only 5 minutes when Joe Higgins cross forced a handball inside the area. Tyler Atack finished coolly into the top left hand corner to open the scoring from the penalty spot.
Oliver Crolla then had a free kick in a promising position but was unable to direct it and hit it straight at the wall on the 10th minute. Jamie Allen made a bright start to the game coming in-field from the left hand side several times, his first chance of the game was dragged wide from 20 yards.
Nelson’s first opportunity of the game came from a driven corner which found the head og a team mate but the ball hit the outside of the post and went for a goal kick. The east Lancashire side came close again just minutes later with an in-swinging free kick going narrowly wide of the left corner and leaving keeper Joe Wheeler with plenty to think about.
It was 2-0 to Town after Higgins found his 20 yard effort deflected into the back of the net, the change in direction beating the goal keeper hands down.
Atack scored his second of the game after half an hour with a superb header across goal into the far corner thanks to a terrific corner from winger Jordan Wood.
After an entertaining, end to end 30 minutes, the game levelled out with the Cod Army looking happy to retain their positive lead and able to hold off any pressure Nelson could force, the score at half time was 3-0.
The second period was only two minutes old Atack almost grabbed a hat trick after good work from Allen down the left.
Nelson replied almost straight away to pull themselves back into the final. The ball was lofted into the box before a goal-mouth scramble with the ball eventually finding its way across the Town line.
This spurred Fleetwood on and they pounded Nelson with a good display of attacking football. They soon restored their three goal advantage when centre-half Ben Cartwright used his power to beat his man and head home.
The Cod Army started to find their feet again and this time it was the turn of Fran Cartwright to come forward and challenge. His header from Mike McAlpine’s back-post free kick was tipped onto the crossbar from 6 yards.
It took an excellent individual goal from Nelson with the midfielder outwitting the Town defence with a dazzling run before calmly slotting home.
The tempo of the game slowed as the Nelson players started to tire and this created space for Fleetwood to exploit. Substitute forward Ben Duffield set himself up from 35 yards to unleash a fierce drive to round off the scoring.
It was a very confident performance from Fleetwood Town as they held strong as a unit even when Nelson had some good attacking spells. In the end class apart was proved and the win crowned Town the 2011/12 Lancashire FA Under-18 Youth Cup champions for the second time in 2 years.
No comments:
Post a Comment