AFC Liverpool v Pilington, 21st November 2023

There was a minute's applause before the game to honour our former Joint Manager Ben Williams, who had died almost five years ago to the day. As I finished my duties in the turnstile, it must have been 15 mins into the game. There was no score at that point, although we had apparently gone close possibly on a couple of occasions.

An entertaining first half was played out, and Pilks certainly played their part. Both Keepers were busy at times, although a flying save by our Danny Hamlett certainly caught the eye.

After the break, the Reds got into the ascendancy, and Kyle Schorah found himself with a gilt edged chance to score. But he somehow shot wide.

With bottom of the table Skem United that evening also playing Colne (who we were due to play on Saturday), Steve Fraser was certainly enjoying news of each Colne goal going in. This was because Skem had poached our Manager during the summer. Although it should be pointed out that by the time this game was being played in November, Matt Potter had been replaced by a certain one-time French International Pascal Chimbonda.

It was the visitors that struck first around the hour mark. The scorer was Callum Laird, who had notably scored twice in the first ever competitive meeting between the two sides during a 3-3 draw back in August 2019.

The lead thankfully was short lived as Tom Croughan struck just a couple of minutes later, to restore parity. A period of Reds' pressure ensued. But Pilks Keeper Jake Hilton was in fine form, in fact making some saves few would have thought he had a right to make. At one point he made a fine double save. This prompted a few fans to joke about bribing him to let one in! Seriously though, it was going to take something special to beat Hilton. But thankfully, we were not going to be denied, as Joe Cunningham shot from outside the 18 yard box. It only took a deflection from a Pilks defender to wrong foot the keeper and give us all three points. 

The winning goal gave us our fourth league win on the spin. It had also been a most entertaining contest.

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