Colne V AFC Liverpool, 7th January 2012

 AFC Liverpool travelled to Colne's XLCR  stadium on 7th January 2012 without having recorded an away league win for the seaason so far. A challenging train journey for me was further complicated by a 1pm pitch inspection. Had the game at Colne been called off, my plan B would have been to head to Bamber Bridge, who were playing at home that day. I knew from a previous trip to East Lancashire a couple of years previous (possibly when we travelled to Barnoldswick Town) that Bamber Bridge's ground was next to the railway. Thankfully, Colne's pitch passed inspection and the game went ahead. More than thirteen years on, I still await my first trip to Bamber Bridge!

AFC were very much on top in the opening ten minutes, with this period including a disallowed goal and an Anthony Brown cross coming back off the crossbar, as the Reds were clearly benefiting from a strong wind behind them. That all changed though on eleven minutes, as following a long ball which split open our defence, Colne took the lead. Colne then pushed on and created several other clear cut chances during a very good spell for the home side. Mark Threlfall, who had given Colne the lead, rounded debutant keeper Leon Bimpson, only to get his feet tangled. As much as Threlfall's misfortune was a relief, it was also very funny and thankfully one of our defenders was able to clear. On another dangerous Colne attack a low cross reached one of their guys in the goalmouth, but somehow the Colne player hit it over the bar from probably only a yard out!

After twenty five minutes, we could have been at least 5-1 down! Thankfully though it was only 1-0 and five minutes before the interval, Steve Jones brought us level with one of his trademark lobs. Although the home side had spurned that series of chances , surely we would not be so lucky in the second half playing against the wind?

It turned out that Colne were not particularly helped by the wind at all. They missed a couple of gilt edged chances in that second half, but so did our very own Steve Jones. Our lads had to work very hard to stay in the game, and got rewarded when Michael McGree raced clear for a breakaway winner on eighty two minutes.

All in all I have to admit we did not do enough to win the match. But then again, the season up to that point had seen the Reds ensure more than their fair share of frustrations. We had not won a league match at all prior to November and often when we lost, it had been close.

From a personal point of view, I had missed our first league victory at home to Winsford Unuted due to work commitments and when I set out for Colne that day, I didn't know for sure if the match would even go ahead, so I was even more made up to see us get our first away win of the season.  

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