Match report: Squires Gate 2 Radcliffe Borough 3

Squires Gate exited the Lancashire Trophy at the first-round stage but can be proud of their fightback against higher league opposition.
Gary Pett scores for Gate Picture: ALBERT COOPERGary Pett scores for Gate Picture: ALBERT COOPER
Gary Pett scores for Gate Picture: ALBERT COOPER

Squires Gate 2

Radcliffe Borough 3

Squires Gate exited the Lancashire Trophy at the first-round stage but can be proud of their fightback against higher league opposition.

Gate fielded much the same side that picked up their first win of the season at Darwen last Wednesday, though Jordan O’Mahoney came back in for the injured Jake Darnell.

Hide Ad
Hide Ad

Evo-Stik League club Radcliffe have a new manager in the former Preston and Manchester City striker Jon Macken and they made a lively start.

They hit a post after 11 minutes, then Jack Williams had his shot saved at the other end.

Williams had a great chance on 19 minutes, set up by the returning Gary Pett, but fired wide. The visitors took the lead two minutes later, when Akik Greir fired home from the edge of the box.

Gate had a penalty claim for hand-ball waved away bu Radcliffe doubled their lead on 36 minutes. The home side did not close down quickly enough as Brendan Glackin fired home from 12 yards.

Hide Ad
Hide Ad

Pett fired a free-kick straight at the keeper and Gate changed ends two down.

When injury prevented Gate keeper Ben Fletcher returning for the second half, captain and midfielder Mike Hall donned the gloves.

And he was picking the ball out of his net after only two minutes as Radcliffe broke from a Gate corner and Glackin was well placed to score his second.

Gate pulled one back just past the hour, when substitute Tarren Moxon’s cross was turned in by Williams from inside the six-yard box.

Hide Ad
Hide Ad

The alert Hall kept Gate in the game when he saved a long-range shot on 67 minutes and this spurred on his side, who scored their second three minutes later.

Jordan O’Mahoney won the ball, drove forward and chipped over the defence to Pett, who took one touch before firing home.

It was all Gate in the final 20 minutes as Radcliffe were pinned back. In the dying moments, Moxon curled a shot just wide and Pett headed over from a corner.

Report: MARK ASHMORE

Gate: Fletcher, O’Mahoney, Higham, Rossall, Carroll, Hall, Colquhoun, Penswick, Williams, Buchan, Pett. Subs: Thornber, Moorhead, Moxon, Cornwell.