AFC Liverpool from Yesteryear

  The Reds needed 8 points from our remaining 6 matches to match our previous best ever points total in the North West Counties League Premier Division. Burscough were second bottom, and 10 points adrift from safety with 6 games to go. Clearly the visitors were in need of a special performance. There was one particular special visitor through the turnstile, in Liverpool FC's Fabio Carvalho. He was invited to the boardroom at half time. He had his pictures taken with a few people. His reason for appearing at the Marine Travel Arena that day was his cousin played for Burscough. His cousin Nuno Rendeiro Silva Costa started on the bench, but did come on later on, giving Alan Harrison the opportunity to show off his Portuguese pronunciation skills. We were very short staffed. Steve Fraser was on programme selling duty. In addition to running the turnstile, I was for the majority of the game effectively producing the tweets for our club twitter account. It was also non-league day, which ...

We had played FC Isle of Man at the MTA 7 weeks earlier on the August Bank Holiday Monday. That day we ran out comfortable 5-2 winners in the league fixture. The script for this match was a little different, in the first half somewhat surprising perhaps. The Ravens came into the game having lost their last two games, including a 1-0 loss to Padiham in their last home game. They probably had more chances than us. They were largely from distance, and when they were on target, they were the kind of effort that didn't give Jack McGovern in goal any problem. We had one effort just wide in the closing stages of the first half Within a few minutes of the restart the visitors should have been in front. A double save from Jack McGovern kept the score at 0-0. Despite that scare, the Reds were starting to assert themselves on the game. As the second half wore on, it looked more and more likely that if the game would be won in the 90 minutes, that it would be the men in Red. Tom Douglas was se...

The first half was very even. I don't think we had created anything before we broke and Kyle Schorah played it across for Rhys Hardacre to coolly slot it home for 1-0.  As I walked round the pitch to the Crossender Road end, I rattled as Lee Carr pulled off a wonderful flying save to deny the visitors. One of their travelling fans remarked how it was many years since he had seen a rattle. A long unbeaten run had been ended in midweek, by Bootle in the Liverpool Senior Cup. We had been good for parts of that game, and hit the post in the first half. Bootle's class shone through later on. It had also been a while since we had last played a home league game. In each of our last three home league games, we had scored 8 goals! A few minutes after that flying Lee Carr save, the visitors were deservedly level. Not long after that, Kyle Schorah was in one on one against the keeper. He tried taking it round the keeper, but he took it too wide and the keeper was able to make the save. As...

The Reds were minutes away from taking all three points, courtesy of substitute John Lawless's first touches. This was after picking the ball up following some indecisive Stockport defending. Prior to taking the lead, it was a match in which we rarely looked like losing. Daniel Hand got into some promising positions down the right on a few occasions. And it was that same player who had our best first half opportunity, missing a one on one following a good link up with Steve Jones. By the time the visitors equalised late on, the match had started to turn a bit nasty. This was in part due to a few bookings there had been.  The Stockport equaliser was from a penalty, won by a player who had come on as a substitute. He was a very big lad, built like a Rugby player from the South Pacific. A couple of minutes before the penalty incident, he nearly rubbed everyone up the wrong way. The ball was given to him from a throw-in following a stoppage, for him to play it back to us. Instead he tr...