AFC Liverpool v Lower Breck, 26th December 2018

The first ever Derby against Lower Breck took place against the backdrop of the sad death of club statistician Don Steele. Don who had been an AFC Suppoter for about a couple of years died on Christmas Eve. This was just a month after the sudden death of Joint Manager Ben Williams.


On leaving the turnstile, I grabbed a coffee and headed out to join our other supporters behind the goal at the far end. The visitors had been having the best of things apparently.

A loose ball from Lower Breck was picked up by Rhys Hardacre about 25 yards from goal. Hardacre then shot and got the ball beyond ex-Reds Keeper Josh Molloy to give the Reds the lead. That was on 18 minutes.

From the large portion of the first half I saw, Lower Breck showed little. There was one effort which was spilled by our Keeper Lee Carr. Thankfully, we got away with that one.

When Lower Breck did get level on 32 minutes, it was from the penalty spot. The challenge which got them that penalty was needless.

Other opportunities for AFC or perhaps I should say half opportunities fell the way of Callum Schorah. One cross ball into the box just evaded him. Another half opportunity saw him pass the ball, when he may have been better to take a chance and take on the last defender.

Within a few minutes of the restart, the Reds were back in front. Jay McGrane took on a couple of defenders down the left hand side. He then came inside and beat Josh Molloy inside his near post.

It was not long before Jay was turning the Lower Breck defence inside and out again. This time he teed up Chris Brady, whose effort was not even close.

In an almost identical move the same player I believe teed up Chris again, which he once again missed. To be fair to Chris though, at least he was getting into good positions, and maybe there was something to work with going forwards.

When the visitors equalised again after the 70 minute mark, it looked like we may pay for those two Chris Brady misses. The Lower Breck goal was a well taken volley across the goal into the corner.

It was so frustrating to find ourselves on parity with a side we should have been beating fairly comfortably. Although, Steve Fraser did say that if we don't take our chances and they do, then we could not complain if Lower Breck were to come away with a point.

As it was, Lower Breck were only level this time for four minutes. Substitute Anthony Lyons held off a challenge and got wrestled to the ground to win a penalty. Anthony himself stepped up to put us back in the lead.

Predictably, the visitors did put us under a bit of pressure. There was one passage of play which first brought a fine save from Lee Carr, and then a follow up effort needed a clearance off the line. Deep into stoppage time there was another heart in the mouth moment as they engineered a one on one against Lee Carr, but thankfully the shot went into the side netting.

Lower Breck were enjoying a fine first season in the North West Counties League, which saw them at this time in a league position towards the higher echelons of the First Division North Table. On this occasion though, the Reds had been the better side, and just held on for the victory.

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