Following on from Saturdays trip across the pennines, on Wednesday FC made the trip again, this to play Halifax Town. The reds lined up with possibly theyre strongest lineup of the pre season so far, with plenty of familliar faces, plus the new ones of Ashton again in net joined by Taylor and Mortimer at Right and Left Back respectively.
The reds started the game brightly against a Halifax side made up of mainly trialists and reserve players, but with the inclusion of Sugden who played for Town in last season's playoff final. United's better start paid off on 11 minutes when a corner was noded home by the towering Rob Nugent to give the North West counties side the lead. The makeshift lineup of Halifax were shocked by the pace and attacking vision FC showed, considering the gap in leagues. It wasn't long before FC added another, and they did it in style, Torpey picked the ball up just on the half way line before making a 15 yard run forward before unleashing another of his 25 yard "Torpedos" high into the top corner of Mawson's goal to make it 2-0. It was almost a year to the day that Torpey had scored FC's first ever goal, also in spectacular long range fashion in a friendly at Flixton. Three minutes later and FC were in dream land as a goalmouth scramble left Will Ahern with an easy tap in to make it 3-0 after 20 minutes! Halifax had to try and make inroads to that lead and they did attack with some style but United's defence were on top form and managed to keep them at bay. That was until around 35 minutes when Halifax left winger Neil Prince hit a cross come shot that deflected of Chadwick and into Sam Ahton's goal to make it 3-1. Just as half time was aproaching things got even better for FC, Stuart Rudd looking for his first goal for the club broke into the box only to be hacked down by keeper Mawson. That left the job of slotting home from the spot to Rory Patterson, which he duly did to send his team in at the break 4-1 to the good.
The second half saw both sides ring the changes, and Halifax bringing on a few first teamers to try and salvage a bit of pride. The Halifax changes eventually paid of for them on 65 minutes when sub Forrest combined well with Killeen resulting in him smashing a sweet volley past Ashton giving him no chance, the second quality goal of the game and made it 4-2. The rest of the game saw a bit of sloppy defending by FC and a few tasty challenges as Halifax tried to get another, but it wasnt to be for them and FC completed a fine performance with their second victory of the pre season.
2 Matty Taylor
3 Alex Mortmer
4 Steve Spencer
5 Dave Chadwick(captain)
6 Rob Nugent
7 Josh Howard
8 Will Ahern
9 Stuart Rudd
10 Steve Torpey
11 Rory Patterson
Subs
12). Rhodri Giggs 13). Barrie George 14). Steve Smith 15). Liam Coyne 16). Dave Brown 17). Dave Swarbrick 18). Mike Lomax 19). Simon Carden 20). Joz Mitten Attendance: 1,072
Scorers Nugent 11, Torpey 17, Ahern 20, Patterson 44