As time for FC has gone on the ends of Gigg Lane have got fuller and fuller. The MRE being first and then moving on to the Main stand before Monday saw the Cemetry end gain a substantial ammount. It was all part of the unbelievable 4,328 fans that turned out in support of the six month old club, in probabblly their most important fixture yet. Winsford United, FC's nearest challengers for the league title.
United's lineup was missing one big part at kick off as Dave Chadwick was out of action due to a broken toe. Meanwhile upfront Leon Mike joined Adie Orr to make his first apperance for the club.
United started the match well with Josh Howard making some great runs down the right and Mike and Orr with some good link up play that resulted in Mike firing over from close range. In what was a high tempo first half with end to end action Winsford gave as good as they got and George was called into action on a few occasions. United shouldve took the lead half way through the first half as a pass from from Howard on the right touch line was put away by Orr, but was strangely rulled out for offside. So after a frantic first half the sides went in level at 0-0.
The second half started and the pace of the game wasn't slowing down at all. Winsford were ecstatic on 51 minutes as George failed to claim a shot near the edge of the area which left Arnold the opportunity to lift it over FC's despairing keeper and put Winsford 1-0 up. This seemed to spur the already noisey crowd on to even more singing and passion, willining FC forward to get the equaliser. They didn't have to wait too long as on 64 minutes who other than Simon Carden was there again to slide home from close range to net his 17th goal of the season and send Gigg Lane into a frenzy of scalf twirlling and singing. This seemed to have knocked the stuffing out of Winsford and they were penned in for much of the time after, even adopting time wasting tactics as they looked to slow down the FC attacks. Winsford were mad to pay for these tactics on 83 minutes as substitute Patterson latched onto poor kick out by Winsford's keeper, which he struck on the bounce viciously into the keeper's right. The MRE behind the goal were ecstatic and Patterson climbed over the advertisment boards to join them. The remainder of the game saw United create a couple of chances to make it 3-1, but 2-1 it finished. A superb result against FC's nearest rivals that opened up a 14 point gap between the sides. And watched by the biggest attendance so far, not a bad start to 2006 you could say :-)
2 Rob Nugent
3 Kevin Elvin
4 Steve Spencer
5 Billy McCartney
6 David Brown(captain)
7 Josh Howard
8 Simon Carden
9 Leon Mike
10 Steve Torpey
11 Adie Orr
Subs:
12 Chris Simms
14 William Aherne
15 Rory Patterson
Attendance 4328
Scorers
Carden 64, Patterson 83,