Runcorn Town FC Official Website - Witton Albion Reserves Match Report

An under strength Town res put in a fantastic performance on Saturday against a strong Witton Albion Res team who were much further into there preseason preparation than Town are.
The visitors started very brightly and put the Town rearguard of Williams, Angell, Graven, Hammond and Tringham under pressure straight away but to there credit they withstood the early onslaught, Town had to dig in with Rob Gorry and Mark McGrath
gradually getting more of the ball through centre midfield and launching a couple of decent counter attacks one such attack saw Barry Angell release Jack Burbidge down the right and his cross was met by the head of Rob Colquitt but the young striker stretching was unable to guide his header on target, Witton eventually took the lead after thirty five minutes a couple of silly mistakes from the Town defence presented them with the opening which they took without hesitation, despite going behind Town�s heads didn�t go down and following a neat passage of possession Rob Colquitt was unlucky again, with his shot on the turn just going over the crossbar for a goal kick half time and the visitors go in with a 1 goal lead.
The second half was a much more even contest the highlights being an amazing triple point blank series of saves by Carl Williams who first dived to his right to prevent a close range header then he blocked a follow up header and finally a close range shot which he not only stopped but held onto as well, apart from these Witton were reduced to a couple of speculative long range efforts which Williams dealt with easily and Town were pressing for an equaliser Colquitt again had a good chance latching onto a good through ball from Richie Hargreaves to beat the offside trap he ran forward but then in attempting to lift the ball over the advancing keeper failed to get enough height and the chance was gone, Paul Illidge and Alex Tringham started to have some joy down the left and after exchanging a couple of one twos with Gorry, Illidge released the overlapping Tringham he cut inside and drove on into the box and with the goal at his mercy he elected to use his favoured left foot to shoot wide but really he should have swung his right at it this was the last and possibly the best chance that Town could muster on an afternoon which despite the defeat was viewed as a success with a number of our young players performing well against strong opposition.

This match report represents the views of the author and not particularly that of Runcorn Town FC.