Reds Get Smacked at Ramsbottom

The Non-League Reds were soundly beaten 4-1 by high-flying Ramsbottom United. Tw goals in each half were enough to give the home side the points their performance deserved.

AFC struggled to get going as Ramsbottom came out very much on the front foot and with a mixture of long balls and some good quick interchanges of passing, it was the men in blue that dominated the early exchanges.

Ben Barnes, making his Red's debut was called into action on a number of occasions as the blue tide continued. Despite lots of effort AFC struggled to create anything of note and the home side kept threatening to take the lead. Just when it looked liked AFC might survive until the break, they switched off momentarily as Ramsbottom to a short free kick over on the right hand side, the ball was half cleared but fell to Walder at the edge of the area to fire home and give his side a 39th minute lead.

Worse was to come in the 1st minute of added on time, when yet another corner for the home side resulted in the ball again falling to an unmarked Ramsbottom player and Hayhurst struck it home to double their lead. It was a big blow to concede the 2nd right on halftime but in all honest it was a fair reflection on how things had gone.

Any hope of better things to come in the 2nd half was quickly diminished, when Holland-Wilkinson fired home to make it 3-0 in the opening minute. AFC responded positively after this and finally created some pressure of their own. As the half progressed Joel Skillen hit the post and Caleb Jones was denied a clear penalty when his cross struck a defender's outstretched arm. This proved to be a false dawn though and when Hayhurst bagged his 2nd and his side's 4th of the afternoon in the 79th minute, the contest was well and truly over. To their credit, AFC kept plugging away and were rewarded with a 92nd minute consolation goal, when Elliot Taylor bravely followed in to score when a Caleb Jones effort came back out off the post.

So the poor run of form continues and it will be another tough game for The Non-League Reds at home on Tuesday night, when they face Charnock Richard. Please get down to support the lads as we try to turn things around.

FINAL SCORE - Ramsbottom United 4 v 1 AFC Liverpool

LINE-UP - 1. Barnes 2. Garrigan 3. Jamieson 4. Moorcroft (c) 5. Fisher-Jones 6. Brown

7. Jones 8. Mahaffy 9. Taylor 10. Paton 11. Lancaster

Subs used - Skillen, Foy, Wright-Ocana, Rooney, Davies

Photos courtesy of Billy Stirrup