Team: Sutcliffe,Verity,Morgan.M,Etienne,Morgan.R,Riley,
Haigh,Dunne,Jones.B,Walters,Ryan.S.
Subs: Downing,Boshell,Carol,Flowers,Littlefair

On arriving at Shawe View for the first time our players couldn’t help noticing what a great pitch it was. The surface was as good as a bowling green. If you couldn’t play football on that surface - you never will. Play was pretty even in the first ten minutes with chances at a minimum - the first arriving from Ben Jones when he burst through on the left and lobbed the keeper only to see the ball bounce over the bar. Trafford came forward and found our defence difficult to break down with Liam Sutcliffe in fine form. With no less than 3 excellent saves in the first half he seemed to be unbeatable and try as Trafford did they could not find a way past him. Rail were put under a lot of pressure with them finding it difficult to get out of their own half. On the times that they did we were only left with long range shots from Scotty Ryan which the keeper dealt with comfortably. Trafford had a chance to go ahead when their forward went through one on one with Sooty but flashed his shot wide of the mark. Just before HT Sooty produced probably his best save of the match to deny Trafford yet again. HT 0-0
Trafford came firing out of their blocks after half time and on 51 minutes Traffords ‘Man of the Match’ Scott Barlow ran at pace down the left hand side of our defence avoiding 2 tackles and blasting a shot into the back of the net to put Trafford one up. Shortly afterwards Rail advanced upfield and Ben Jones flashed a header just past the post. This seemed to pick the pace of the game up and it was end to end stuff with shots just going wide from both sides. The game had been played in a friendly spirit but on 60 mins Traffords no.6 went into a 50/50 tackle with his foot raised and the young referee thought it was dangerous and promptly booked him. On 70 mins Rail brought on fresh legs with Guiseppe Downing & Jamie Flowers coming on in replace of Ryan Haigh and Joel Etienne. Dean Walters dropped back into midfield and Guiseppe joined Ben Jones up front. Within a space of a couple of minutes Rail had 2 half penalty appeals turned down for handball with attempts from Guiseppe and Ben. Time was running out for Rail and were finding it difficult to break through so in an attempt to get back into the game Dave Morgan brought on Byron Littlefair for Scotty Ryan on 80 mins. Shortly afterwards an unsavoury mass brawl broke out on the half way line with James Riley incensed about something I didn’t see. From what other people were saying Traffords substitute (no.15)for no apparent reason spat at Matt Morgan. Matt reacted and then other players joined in. The referee obviously saw the incident and had no alternative but to send him off. Matt was shown a yellow card for his reaction (and who wouldnt?) The game continued but no further chances were created and the game ended: Trafford 1 Rail 0

Although we were beaten there were good performances and my Men of the Match were Dan Verity and Liam Sutcliffe. The players won’t have time to dwell on this game too much as we have a Bank Holiday Monday game down at Station View against Mossley.