First Team

Fleetwood Hesketh 2  Euxton Villa 4

5th December 2005

For fully an hour, Villa played some scintillating stuff, as good as they have all season, scored three cracking goals and forced home keeper Alex Harrison into handful of outstanding saves. Then, like the throwing of a switch, they began to drop deeper and deeper, and offered their opponents hope where none existed, conceded two sloppy, sloppy goals, and very nearly let in a third, before regaining their composure to close out the game with a fine fourth.

On a superb surface, Villa set off determined to establish early superiority, and inside the first ten minutes Ian Curwen had a towering header well held from an Andy Farley cross, and Ryan Lilley found himself clear and away, nut pulled his shot wide of the upright. David Heald almost struck gold, getting on the end of another clever Farley free kick, but his low drive was just the wrong side. Down the other end it was fully twenty minutes before Justin Johnston was required, and that a routine catch in the midriff.

Then on thirty four minutes Villa built another flowing forward movement. The ball came through the air to Curwen, who deftly flicked it to Stuart Bingham thirty yards out. Taking deliberate aim, he met it on the full and found the bottom corner with a bending, dipping volley that no keeper could have done anything about. Goal of the season? Time will tell!

Whilst the large crowd were still buzzing from this, Jon Salisbury sent Heald away in the right corner. Using his strength and trickery to full effect he beat his man, looked up and picked out Lilley, who slammed home from ten yards. Right on half time, Villa almost produced a replica of this superb team goal, this time Tom Whittaker setting up Salisbury. The latter’s precision strike looked a goal all the way, but somehow Harrison got a foot to it to turn it wide.

The second half saw the visitors continue in confident mood. Lilley nipped in to pounce on a short back pass, but his lob was just too high, then five minutes later the same player shot over again, though he looked well off-side when collecting the through ball. Then right on the hour mark, Sam Bolton floated a beautifully weighted free kick thirty yards precisely on to the head of the towering Heald, and his power header again gave the keeper no chance.

Job done – time to pack up and go home?  It would appear that that must have been the assumption of many of the Villa players. Within a minute, they handed their opponents a lifeline, switching off and conceding from nothing when Johnston failed to hold a routine catch. Less than two minutes later they were let off the hook when they allowed danger to develop again from nothing whilst looking around in vain for an off-side flag. The reprieve was only temporary however. Less than five minutes the visitors, now with their tails up at the unbelievable turn in their fortunes, capitalised again on defensive uncertainty.

Fortunately, the Villa lads rallied, and although the tendency to sit too deep persisted, their athleticism and fitness allowed them to exploit the gaps that began to appear in the Fleetwood Hesketh back line as they endeavoured to push on. With ten minutes to go, Mark Swift sent Heald away with a perfectly weighted pass, and he powered on to grab his second and his side’s fourth with a well placed ground shot, whilst Lilley was on hand to ensure no defender nipped in to spoil the party.

 Back in control, the Euxton side saw out the remaining minutes without causing any further  flutterings of the nerves, and Lilley almost crowned a fine afternoon’s work with a near thing from a breakaway in stoppage time.

What a difference from Villa’s last expedition to Sea Cop, where an embarrassing capitulation left a bitter taste at the end of an otherwise satisfactory season. This time the lads showed just how far Mark McDonnell has brought them, with a superb team performance, save for the fifteen minutes or so in the middle of the second half. Four or five on the way back and available selection will give the manager a lot of soul searching in the next couple of weeks!

Villa Line-up: Johnston, Farley, Davies, Bolton, L.Chambers, Heald (O’Loughlin 84) Bingham, Salisbury (Swift 72), Curwen, Lilley, Whittaker (Briggs 63),