AFC Liverpool v Padiham, 4th February 2017


On the turnstile before the match, I asked this chap wanting to get through if he had paid.  As it turned out, the proud bloke was Steve Wilkes, the Manager of Padiham.
It was a fairly even first half, with Jack Leamey the main outlet for the Reds.  We had a few efforts at Padiham's goal, but they were all pretty much straight at their keeper.
It was the visitors though who had the two best chances of the first half, which both fell to James Dean their number 9.  I was later informed by Marine AFC's Community Officer that Dean had previously played at FC Halifax with a certain Jamie Vardy.  Both efforts went wide.
The first half was held up for several minutes as Padiham's Centre-Half and Goalkeeper clashed.  It left the defender needing urgent attention to his head.  Unfortunately, he was unable to continue.
One farce out of that unfortunate incident is that the referee did not give the Reds a corner, after the ball did go out off the two Padiham players who clashed.  Then again, the ref and one of his assistants were having a shocker.  Too many offside calls were made incorrectly.
Into the second half, Padiham were still creating clear cut chances.  But, they were now falling to different players, with the same result.
Out of nothing, just as Jack Leamey was a bit quiet, a superb drive from 25 yards broke the deadlock.  That was midway through second half.
As I say, it was all out of nothing.  Much of the second half continued in the same vain as the first half.  We were still also having the odd effort at their keeper, and the standards set by the officials continued to fall below expectation.
We did hold out for our first home league victory against Padiham, our great rivals from our inaugural season.  However, on another day it could just have easily gone the other way.

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