This will be a short report, because there is little worth writing about, following a match so dire in its unfolding that it was only surpassed in its woefulness by the ineptitude of the Villa performance. As usual, there was a howling gale blowing the length of the pitch, and , kicking into the teeth of it in the first half, Villa clearly thought that if they could keep it all square till the interval, then victory would surely be a foregone conclusion with the benefit of the elements in the second period. Unfortunately, for the script to be adhered to, a bit of cohesive effort would have been required, and such was notable only for its absence. The home side, obviously well used to playing week in, week out in these conditions, were able to manage the hurricane, restricting the visitors to very few meaningful attempts, whilst grabbing a valuable winner in one of their few raids into the Villa box.

In a tight and tense match, any team with a tenuous lead will adopt as much time wasting tactics as the officials will tolerate, and no-one can blame them for that – we have from time to time done the same ourselves.  Unfortunately for Villa, this referee was prepared to accept ridiculous amounts of delaying tactics without reproach, yet only adding two minutes of stoppage time at the end of it all.

At the end of the first half, there was nothing in the notebook, such was the nature of the fare on offer. Freckleton, made little constructive use of the wind advantage, and as stated, Villa were content that in nullifying any first half threat.....job done.  However, nine minutes in to the second half, Freckleton took advantage of one of the few moments of uncertainty in the Villa defence to enable Watson to grab an important lead. The home side then took control and restricted the visitors to a couple of tentative efforts from distance, which were handled with sufficient nervousness to offer some hope, but such efforts were too few and too speculative to carry any real threat.  

Unbeaten this year up to this point, Villa waved goodbye to their impressive run of form in ignominious fashion, and can blame no one but themselves, victory was surely there for the taking. With matches coming thick and fast in April, every opportunity is there to redress the shortcomings, starting with a couple of home matches, first this Saturday (3^rd April) with a tricky cup tie against Lostock St Gerrard’s  (nb 2.30 kick-off) followed quickly by the visit of Darwen on Easter Monday (5^{th.  -} 3.0pm). This will probably be the only time Darwen will visit Runshaw in a competitive fixture as they are headed back to the North West Counties league, so one not to be missed.

Villa Line- Up: Ross Baxter, Matt Conway, Darren Davies, Lee Chambers ( Ross Dickinson, 81),  Sam Bolton, Matt Plano, David Heald, Gavin Cooper, David Warburton (Stuart Bingham 66), Ryan Lilley, Danial Hogg..