Title is in their sights after a trio of timely winning displays
TODMORDEN FC u15s go into the last week of the football season with the title firmly in their sights.
Superb winning displays over Brierfield Celtic Red, Junior Clarets and Barnoldswick Town see Todmorden two points behind leaders Briercliffe Rovers with a game in hand, which all adds up to a mouth watering final game of the season against Rovers on May 18.
The Todmorden boys have already had their most successful season ever and have only tasted league defeat twice all season.
The encounter with Brierfield Celtic was probably the best team performance all season, with Tod showing a passion and hunger that had been missing from previous games. With Celtic throwing everything at Tod from the kick off it need a superb defensive display to soak up the pressure and they were stalwart to a man, Ibi Mahmood, Dave Wallace and Afan Akhtar in particular playing superbly well.
It was against the run of play when Ashman playing on the left wing collected a clearance, shot down the line and placed an inch perfect cross onto the head of leading scorer Scott Wrench to give Tod a 1-0 lead. Almost immediately Celtic replied when an uncharacteristic slip by Akhtar gave the Celtic striker a chance to beat the excellent Hesslewood in the Tod goal.
With the half drawing to a close, Tod began to see more of the ball and a throw in from the right hand side level with the 18 yard box found Gregg Dickens who acrobatically scissor kicked the ball from fully 20 yards into the top corner to give Tod the half time advantage.
The second half saw Tod exert a control on the game that they will need to replicate to lift the title. Arran Ingham was immense - no Celtic player was allowed more than a fraction of a second on the ball before Ingham's robust tackling regained control of the ball.
Dickens and Ingham simply stopped Celtic playing and with both players playing with superb touch, vision and accurate passing skills, Tod began to look comfortable and striker Jack Dungworth began to see more and more of the ball. His interactions with Ingham and Ashman were some of the best football this league will have seen all season.
A penalty earned by Jonny Taylor and converted by Gregg Dickens secured the game. A sickening clash of heads towards the end of the match left Akhtar and the Celtic striker in a heap on the floor, and the Celtic player was rushed to hospital with a nasty gash along the side of his head which required stitching.
Two goals for Jonny Taylor saw Tod cruise to victory against Barnoldswick Town Blue on Sunday afternoon in blistering weather at Victory Park.
Tod quickly scored the two goals to ensure victory and then both teams struggled to play anything resembling football as the stifling condition sapped energy reserves.
l TODMORDEN Borough Reserves ended their Aegon West Lancashire League Reserve Division Two season with a win, defeating Hesketh Bank Res 4-1 on the road, earning them eighth place and a mid-table berth with ten wins and four draws from their 26 games.
Other games played last week saw Woodhouse go down 6-2 at home to George IV in the Burnley Sunday League and Todmorden Veterans losing 5-2 at home to St Albans in the Rochdale Alliance second division.
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Saturday 04 February 2012
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