Game 18

01/03/05 – League

AFC 5 – 1 Cotgrave

Attenborough were quickly back to winning ways with a comprehensive victory over Cotgrave on a sunny morning at The Strand. Following last week’s narrow defeat to the league leaders, the home side were boosted by the return of Simon Savage and Louis Smith to the squad and the manager elected to revert to three at the back, with Reece Caine stepping into the holding mid-fielder position.

After a scrappy first few minutes, Attenborough found their feet and it always felt like they were in command of this game once Brad Greatorex had broken the deadlock with a good finish from the edge of the box, the hosts then doubling their advantage only two minutes later with a well-worked goal expertly finished off by Luke Smith after a clever ball through by George Pursglove.

It felt like the game had been wrapped up shortly before half time when Pursglove’s corner crept over the line to make it 3-nil. However, just seconds later Reece Cyrek skewed a cross from out wide on the right flank which flew into the Attenborough net to pull one back for Cotgrave.

During the second period, Attenborough went in search of a fourth goal to seal the game and were then tasked with scoring as many as possible purely due to the goal difference situation in the league title race. Cotgrave weren’t without a threat themselves, though, and Fin Haywood had to make two excellent saves from well-struck free kicks when the game was still in the balance.

After some frustrating misses - at least a couple of corners ricocheted off posts, defenders and forwards before failing to be converted - the Blues continued to be urgent in their attacks, Simon Savage stepping further forward and making a real impact, and we finally got the game-sealing goal in the 78^th minute through recent signing Harry Morgan, who provided a quality finish across the keeper following a well-timed pass from Brad Greatorex.

A deserved fifth goal followed not long after when Luke Smith’s cross found its way into the net via a Cotgrave defender. It was reward for a committed display from all the players that featured, though Savage and Colm Keegan-O’Kane both had excellent games in breaking up and starting attacks from the back, both having the ability to play a lot further up if required but doing excellent work for us in defence.

There’s a long way to go in the title race, but this result reduces the goal difference gap from four to one and keeps us firmly in the hunt.

Next week we face Cotgrave again, this time in a Cup Semi Final at their ground (earlier 10 AM kick off time), with the prize of a spot in the final to take place at Hucknall Town FC up for grabs.

haywood; savage, humphriss, keegan-o’kane; sharma, r caine, l caine ©, mee, luke smith (20’,80’); greatorex (17’), pursglove (43’)

subs; louis smith, morgan (78’)