Report

LANCASHIRE CUP 1/4 FINAL V BOUNDARY PARK JUNIORS

Having already made history by being the first Layton team to reach the 1/4 final stage we now faced tough opposition in the form of Boundary Park Juniors. This is the team partly responsible for the development of players suchas Gary & Phil Neville, Paul Scholes and David May, so we knew it was going to be a stern test.
Right from the off we were up against it with BPJ attacking down both wings with pace. To their credit the lads adapted play well to cope. Our wide midfielders had to drop deeper to provide extra cover. This left us short going forward and George had to do a lot of thankless work upfront on his own. Luke T and Andrew defended superbly and BPJ were being limited to long range shots. They also put in several fine crosses that Liam coped with very well. Full backs Nathan and Jack both had tough wingers but they equipped themselves excellently. When required Jenson and Jaydan dropped back to help out.
The match was turning into a great spectacle despite a lack of real goalmouth action. We had a couple of quick breaks, with Lewis and Kieron starting to pull the strings in the middle. Jaydan was unlucky when he failed to make proper contact with  his shot. BPJ continued to press hard and it was us that was more relieved to hear the half time whistle with the score still 0-0.

We came out at the start of the second half with a bit more purpose and had our best spell of the match. Luke B started to break up play and we had a couple of half chance with shots from Lewis and Luke T. BPJ had a quick break and their forward went through with only Liam to beat. Fortunately he screwed his shot just wide. This was the clearest chance of the match, but we battled gamely and were unlucky on a couple of occasions when the ball just wouldn't break for us in their box. Josh and Connor came on and added a bit of extra bite to our defending just when it was needed.
As the clock ticked on penalties seemed inevitable with both defences performing heroics. To be honest neither team deserved to lose but when the final whistle went we realised that one of them would be going out to the dreaded spot kicks.

The 70 minutes of match play was a credit to both teams and their coaches. It was played in the right spirit and excellently refereed by Dave Heron. Layton and Boundary Park both gave 100% as we would expect and both can be proud of the way they performed today.
PENALTIES
Every credit to the players from both teams who stepped up to take a spot kick. At 12 and 13 years old it takes a lot of bottle to be prepared to do so and it is a shame for any team to lose this way.
With both teams having scored all their first 5 penalties (our scorers being George, Josh, Luke T, Lewis and Jaydan) it went to sudden death. Nathan calmly slotted home his penalty. BPJ then had to score. Their player struck possibly the best penalty of the day but Liam dived the correct way and pulled off a fine save low to his right.
Delight on our side and some tears on theirs. It was fantastic though to see so many of our players go to console the unfortunate BPJ player. A fine contest between 2 evenly matched teams.

We were so proud of every single player today as were all the parents who made the long trip to Chadderton. We didn't choose MOTM awards as every one of them deserved it today.
I would have loved to finish this report by saying,
"Gary Neville, Phil Neville, Paul Scholes and especially Davd May, your boys took one hell of a beating"........... But that definately wasn't the case, BPJ can take pride from their performance and we wish them the best of luck for the rest of the season.
As for us. Well what can I say. Brilliant. Well done. If you work hard you will reap the dividends.
WELL DONE EVERYONE!!!!