At last! A good Rossendale display earns top points

Date published: 05/12/2009

Saturday 5th December 2009 Unibond League Division One North

Rossendale United 2 v 1 AFC Fylde
With Harrogate railway losing at home Rossendale climbed off the bottom of the league with a well earned 2-1 win over AFC Fylde making up for two defeats by the same opponents earlier in the season.

New signing Leonard Rico-Richards had an encouraging debut and he almost opened the scoring in the first few minutes but elected to shoot from a narrow angle and unfortunately only found the side netting.

In the first two games between the sides ex Rossendale man Joe Booth produced match wining performances and goals in each game but this time he saw his free kick pushed onto the bar by keeper Tom Brocklehurst and the ball cleared away to safety.

Fylde missed a great chance to take the lead when a cross from the left was met on the volley by Farrell Kilbane but his effort was over the bar when in truth perhaps he should have scored.

With Tom Smith and Rico-Richards controlling the midfield things were beginning to look a little brighter for Rossendale than of late and they both came close to opening the scoring but their efforts were either charged down or went just wide of the post on more than one occasion.

As the half wore on Rossendale were denied what looked like a certain penalty for hand ball but unfortunately the referee saw it differently and waved play on and the match remained deadlocked at half time.

The second half continued much in the same vein until the in the 78th minute a surging run and cross from the left wing by Smith was met by the onrushing Alex Leke who gave the keeper no chance from close range but his over exuberant celebrations earned him a second yellow card and a rather unfortunate sending off.

Ten men Rossendale still carried on trying to pass the ball around and eight minutes later a superb through ball from Tom Clarkson played in Jason Hart and he placed the ball neatly past the advancing keeper to give the Dale what should have been an chance to run the clock down with a minimum of effort especially when Matt Ellis missed a glorious chance to put the game out of reach of Fylde when he met a cross from Hart and put his shot wide of the post when it seemed easier to score.

It looked like Rossendale were going to comfortably hang on for the points until a minute into added time Ryan Elderton scored from close range to give the home crowd a nervous final two minutes but all ended well and earned Rossendale only their second win in the league this season,

Rossendale Team

Tom Brocklehurst, Danny Thomas, Keith Wedge, Bee Ami. Harry Bockarie, Ben Jackson, Tom Smith, Tom Clarkson, Leonard Rico Richards, Alex Leke,

Shaun Williams

Substitutes

Jason Hart, (for Jackson), Matt Ellis (for Smith), Andrew Charlesworth (for Ami), Nathan Taylor (not used), Josh Mitton (not used)

Attendance 117