AFC Liverpool v Bootle, 26th December 2012

After a few weeks of postponements and the odd week at Anfield instead, it was great to reacquaint myself with everybody in the AFC congregation once again.  How the Boxing Day fixture against Bootle even managed to survive was a bit of a mystery.  The rain didn't half start to dance down during my drive between Warrington and Prescot.But what a start.  Muktar Mahama headed home after just three minutes from Peter Doran's cross to give AFC the lead.  The visitors were soon level.  The name on the scoresheet was Paul Byrne.  And Byrne scored for me one of the best goals I ever saw during the "AFC at Valerie Park" era.  It was a long range beauty.Despite there being no further goals in the first half, it was the Reds who were producing the better football.  With the better football, we were creating some good chances.  With one effort which came back off their post, we were especially unlucky not to be at least 2-1 to the good at half time.I was commenting to Dave The Rattler in the early stages of the second half that we had definitely been the better team so far.  That statement may have put the mockers on the lads, as Bootle then went on to have a decent spell in which they had a penalty appeal turned down, and also hit our woodwork.Thankfully we survived Bootle's threat, and once again we were asking the main questions of the visitors, forcing their keeper into making a few saves.  It was around the midway point of the second half when John Lawless scored the winner.  It was in fact a clever goal involving link up play between Lawless and Mahama, finished off by Lawless from a narrow near post angle.After that we did have to survive a scramble which resulted from a late Bootle corner.  But survive we did, for our first home win over our local rivals.

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