Report: FC Village 4 Claughton Hotel 4

An 89th minute equaliser from substitute Victor Thurgill (no 10 in above photo) saved the Village's blushes as they salvaged a point in an eight goal thriller down at Levers in the battle of the hotels. With both Kenny and Timmy still absent a decision was made to fill the midfield so Machin was moved in from the wing to join Booey and Crozzer in a midfield three which gave Martin and Harper run outs on the wings with Maggot alone up front. For the first time in a while there was four on the bench as Cottier joined Victor, Mike and new signing Peter Byrne.

This move seemed to work as they team tore out of the blocks and for the first 20 minutes played probably their best football of the season so far. After the visitors had the first attack of the game in the opening minute when Jamie had to dive full length to tip a shot round the post the Village played some excellent football and deservedly opened up a three goal lead. Soon after that save by Jay the Village opened the scoring when a sweeping move down the right ended with Booey crossing for Machin to side foot in from close range. Next attack and it was 2-0 as this time Booey broke in to the area down the right and hit his shot across the keeper in to the far corner of the goal. The Village were flying and Claughton didn’t know what had hit them as they tried to get back in to it. There was relative calm for about ten minutes then from a Claughton corner the Village broke away and Maggot got the ball on the half way line, knocked it past the defender and raced away to slip it under the advancing keeper for the third. The Village were playing really well although Claughton did start to exert some pressure of their own with out really troubling the home goal. Then just before the interval came the two decisive points of the match. Firstly another break down the right ended with Maggot putting in a tantalising cross which saw Machin come flying in but his header just went wide of the post. Then just a minute or so before the interval Claughton got themselves a lifeline when one of their wingers crossed to the centre forward who despite looking way offside headed home from close range. So instead of going in at the interval a deserved four goals up the Village now only led 3-1 knowing that the visitors were still in with a genuine shout.

As expected Claughton threw everything at the Village from the restart and when their centre half scored the first of what would be a perfect hat trick the Village started to falter. They just couldn’t get their game going and nearly all the pressure came from the visitors and it came as no surprise when they equalised with a header making it 3-3. The Village now tried to shake things up as they brought on Cottier and Pete for his debut but they were still struggling although Cottier came very close to restoring their lead when he hit a great volley just over the bar. Then with about 10 minutes left there a major incident as a Claughton player surged past a static Village defence and he was just about to enter the box when Booey in trying to make a tackle brought him down. The Claughton players claimed it was inside the box and one of them went up to Booey and kicked him so the ref was left no choice but to dismiss Booey for his professional foul and then the Claughton player. The ref then said the free kick was right on the edge of the area but the resulting effort went over the bar. However minutes later the Claughton man of the match ran past the Village midfield and defence again and hit home his hat thick and what he thought would be the winner. The Village had other ideas though and they were not going to give up a match they deserved to get something out of so they threw on Victor to join Maggot up front and it paid immediate dividends. Maggot got the ball deep inside the Claughton half and he threaded a great pass through which Victor ran on to and clipped home his first goal in seven games for a dramatic final minute equaliser. So it ended 4-4, a fair result in the end although both sides will probably feel they could have and should have won it.

Team Line-up

FC Village: Hill: Saunders, Whorton, Hutton, Wilson; Metcalf, Leeds, Doran (Cottier), Machin (Thurgill), Harper (Byrne); Eaton
Sub not used: Richardson

More photos from this game click here