AFC Liverpool v Silsden, 4th August 2012

It was a match on the opening day of the season which summed up the two sides of John Lawless, the Reds' talisman.  Over at Anfield, the big brother had a new Manager in Brendan Rodgers.  It appeared that little brother was also trying to follow in the Rodgers philosophy of dominating possession.For the first quarter of an hour or so we probably did have something like 80% possession.  In that spell new frontman Lee Maden showed great vision to catch their keeper off his line, only to see his superb effort come back off the bar.  The big problem though was that some of our possession was dangerously done in and around our own penalty area, and the visitors twice went close after we surrendered possession.Silsden did take the lead in bizarre fashion as Steve Williams passed the ball into his own net.  For a while the home side were on the back foot, but that man Lawless changed all that.  His first goal was a brilliant chip into the top corner.  And Lawless scored again just before half time after being played in by Steve Williams.Early in the second half, the other side of Lawless struck as he received a red card for elbowing an opponent off the ball.  Silsden were possibly also fortunate not to go down to ten, when an elbow on Steve Williams only earned a yellow card!The ten men rode their luck at one point in the second half as a Silsden player went down in the area, possibly under some contact.  Although I did mention to a Silsden supporter that his player probably went down too easily, I do accept another referee may have thought differently. Predictably the Cobbydalers did put the ten men under some late pressure, but we hung on for our first win of the season.  It was a win which would surely set us up for a different type of season to the previous campaign.  After all, we had to wait till November last time around for win number one!

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