Date: 22-Nov-08
Competition: League
Scorers: David McKean
Man of the Match: Dave Lowe
Match Report:
Hamilton Harvest suffered their first defeat in 6 games at the hands of Greenbank BB on Saturday. Harvest lined up in a 4-4-2 formation with Dave Lowe in goal, right to left in defence was Shug, Hammy, Gizzy & Aiky, right to left in midfield was Daryl, Omar, Alex & Hawky & in attack was Shanksy & William. Greenbank started the brighter of the 2 teams and it wasn’t long before they had an opportunity to take the lead, David Brown latched on to a long ball over the top of the Harvest defence but as he tried to round Dave Lowe in the Harvest goal, Dave got a hand to the ball and collected comfortably. Greenbank had Harvest on the back foot and took the lead in the 23^rd minute, the ball was played over Shug on the right of defence to Colin Thomas, despite appeals from the Harvest defence that the Greenbank midfielder was off side when the ball was played the referee waved play on and Colin ran through on goal and fired his shot low to Dave’s left, Dave got down well and got a hand to the ball but could do nothing to prevent the ball bouncing up off the underside of the crossbar and dropping over the line to make the score 1-0. Harvest then went on the offensive looking for an equalizer and it nearly came when good work down the right resulted in Daryl whipping in a low cross, Shanksy got across the front of the defender and volleyed his shot just over the Greenbank crossbar. As it turns out this was Harvest’s only clear cut chance of the first half and the remainder of the half was spent trying to thwart the Greenbank attacks and thanks to Dave Lowe in the Harvest goal the score at half time remained at 1-0.
Harvest started the 2^nd half brightly and enjoyed their share of possession as they looked to get back in to the game. With 55 minutes on the clock Harvest made their first substitution with Aiky making way for David McKean, this meant that Hawky dropped back to left back, Shanksy moved to left midfield, Alex went up front and David played in centre midfield. Harvest scored the equalizer in the 60^th minute when Shanksy picked up the ball on the edge of the Greenbank penalty area and fired a fierce low shot, the keeper looked as if he would collect the shot comfortably but spilled the ball in to the path of David McKean who knocked the ball in to the net to make it 1-1. The game was now well balanced and any of the 2 teams could have gone on to win it, unfortunately for Harvest it was Greenbank who scored what turned out to be the winning goal. The ball was picked up in midfield and played over the top of the Harvest defence in to the path of David Brown, once again the cry’s for offside fell on deaf ears and the referee allowed play to continue and David advanced in on goal and calmly slotted the ball passed Dave Lowe in to the bottom corner. Harvest then made their final substitution when Yusef came on for Daryl at right midfield and it was Yusef who had Harvest’s best chance at an equalizer, however when the ball fell to him in the Greenbank penalty area it was behind him and he could only drag his shot and the keeper collected the ball. Harvest continued to press for an equalizer but unfortunately couldn’t breach the Greenbank defence and the game ended with the score at 2-1.
Unlucky guys, this was a game in which we could have and probably should have done better, well done to David McKean who came of the bench to score and to Dave Lowe who deservedly got the man of the match award after pulling off 4 or 5 brilliant saves to keep us in the game. Let’s just try and take the positives from this in to our next game and get back to winning ways.