Powerful start to the season as Urmston drag opponents aside (From Messenger Newspapers)

Powerful start to the season as Urmston drag opponents aside

7:03pm Tuesday 2nd October 2012 in Sport

Urmston Men’s first team completed an impressive comeback to beat Crewe Vagrants Men’s first team at Wellacre on Saturday.

It was the away side that took the early initiative scoring two goals in quick succession following aerials deep into the Urmston defense.

Urmston found themselves with a mountain to climb but swiftly turned that mountain into a mole hill when, man-of-the-match, Andy Power slammed home an expertly placed penalty corner routine.

Urmston were much the better side and enjoyed long spells of possession before a neat bit of play out of defence found Ollie Cooper who earned his side another penalty corner. Andy Power stepped up again to drag-flick the ball past the Crewe goalkeeper who should have perhaps done better on this occasion. The teams went in at half-time 2-2.

Things became much more difficult for Crewe early on in the second half when two of their players were shown yellow cards and were down to nine men for five and 10 minutes respectively.

It was during this time that Urmston took the lead through Tom Hughes after Stefan Wasilewski stole the ball and slotted it through to John Crossley who laid the ball on a plate for a tap-in at the back post.

It was yet another penalty corner that saw Urmston go further ahead when a slow push-out worked out well and it was Ollie Cooper that hit the back-board. Urmston’s day got even better when Stefan Wasilewski fired into a virtually empty net after some excellent wide play found the striker at the top of the D.

Crewe clawed one back late on but it was too little too late as the full-time whistle was blown soon after.

The Mens 2nd team travelled to Mossley Hill, for the first league game of the season. Urmston sporting some new faces were in a confident mood. Mossley Hill started the game the brightest but there was no real test for the Urmston goalkeeper, Jack Coxon. The best chance of the half fell to Matty Downes, who had a one on one with the Mossley Hill goalkeeper that forced a good save. Mossley Hill also started the second half the more dominant team and it wasn’t long before they went 1-0 up. Urmston didn’t let their heads go down and carried on fighting hard. As the half progressed, tiredness crept into Urmston’s play and some good attacks were let down by the final ball.

With 15 minutes left Mossley Hill drilled a ball into the Urmston D and the ball was deflected into the top corner to give the goalkeeper no chance and Mossley Hill a 2-0 lead. Soon after, Urmston scored their first league goal of the season, but sadly their last of this game. Despite their tiredness Urmston rallied for the last 10 minutes but the equalizer remained elusive. This was a good team effort by Urmston and in a close vote the man of the match award went to Sam Brocklehurst.

Fielding four youngsters, a player who has never played before and two veterans, the men's third team slumped from deficit of 0 to 1 at the end of a good first half to a full-time score 0 to 5 against an experienced Preston side. Despite that there were credible performances particularly from goalkeeper man of the match James McLoughlin who gave a top rate performance, Kevin Crooke in the centre defence and centre midfielders Steve Moon and Chris Bates and striker Tom frame. One of the youngsters, 14-year-old Cameron Jackson showed in his first game much promise for the future.

The ladies 1s followed their 4-0 victory last week with a 5-0 win over Didsbury Northern in their game this weekend putting them at the top of the first Division.

The ladies 2s also continued their winning ways with another 3-0 win over Oldham, Charlotte O’Toole scoring 2 of the goals and the third taking a deflection from the opposition. Natasha Weaver and Bronwen O’Toole took joint players player for the game.

The ladies 3s won 3-1 in their game against Stockport following a solid team effort.