Reds Thrashed at League Leaders

daveinnelli
Oct 17
2 min read

*Matty Brown making his 100th appearance for AFC*

In what was always going to be a tough Tuesday night trip to League leaders Padiham, going two goals down and losing a key midfielder in the opening 9 minutes, made the task of getting something from the game almost impossible.

The Non-League Reds knew that the home side would come flying out the blocks, following their shock home hammering to lower division opposition in the Macron Cup, the previous weekend. However, the warning went unheeded and AFC just didn't get started until it was too late and the damage was done. The 1st goal came in the 6th minute, as AFC failed to clear their lines from a free-kick resulting in a goalmouth scramble, the ball eventually falling to Padiham's number 11 who smashed the ball home.

Before the Reds had time to regroup, a long ball was played through to Freddie Machell, who ran into the area and slotted past Parkinson to double the lead. To make matters worse for AFC, Dan Mahaffy pulled up when chasing the goalscorer and had to be helped from the pitch. The Reds keeper had to make a good save from Machell on 20 minutes to stop a third, as the home side threatened to run away with it. As the half progressed AFC still struggled to make a dent in Padiham's defences and in injury time at the end of the ist period, Bradley Knox rose the highest to head home from a corner to effectively win the game before the whistle sounded for the break.

In all honesty, the 2nd half was more of the same, with the league leaders having more and better possession and creating half chances. On 56 minutes they got a 4th, following a fine pass from Machell to Wane, who finished for his 2nd of the night. It took until the 80th minute for AFC to call the home keeper into action but even that was an easy save from a Caleb Jones effort. Thankfully time ran down and it was definitely a performance to forget for the men in red.