The good, the bad and the muddy

MATCH REPORT 7 FEBRUARY 2010
Shelf Panthers 8 Hebden Bridge 6

Shelf match reports usually try to avoid clichés like the plague – but this really was the classic game of two halves.

In the first 35 minutes, Shelf produced some of their best football of the season to cruise into a 6-2 lead.

Playing down the slope after the break against the league’s bottom side, they looked certain to romp to victory. Instead, they suffered another attack of second-half jitters – just as they did against Battyeford in their last match – before eventually managing to cling on for an important win.

Such a close final outcome looked unlikely when the Panthers surged into a 3-0 lead inside the first ten minutes. First, Tom Mann’s perfectly-flighted corner found Robert rising at the far post to head home. Then Robert got his second with a neat flick from Toby’s hard, low cross from the left. And a minute later, Tom Mann skipped past several challenges in the area before unleashing a venomous shot which the keeper could only parry into Toby’s path.

Hebden Bridge pulled a goal back after 18 minutes, but Toby made it 4-1 when he ran onto a through-ball from Tom Mann – who produced an inspired midfield display in the first half – and buried the ball high into the net past the advancing keeper.

The half ended in a frenzy of action. Luke pulled off two great diving saves. Toby grabbed another close-range goal. The visitors pulled one back. Then Tom Mann stroked another inviting through-ball; Toby controlled it with his right foot and steered it home with his left. Phew - 6-2 and the entire second half still to play.

We were expecting an avalanche of goals – but not for the opposition. Incredibly, within six minutes of the restart, Hebden Bridge had reduced the deficit to 6-4.

The Panthers hit back and Robert gave them a three-goal cushion in the 46th minute when he completed his hat-trick with an opportunistic strike straight from an opposition goal-kick. Surely that had killed the match off…

But Hebden Bridge fought back bravely with two more quick goals which left the Panthers with a slender 7-6 lead with 16 minutes still to play.

As the visitors went in search of an equaliser, captain Jonny marshalled the Shelf rearguard action, hurling himself around with total disregard for life, limb and laundry bills to make tackles, blocks and clearances. His mud-encrusted display earned him two accolades – the Man of the Match medal and the Tony Williams Memorial Award for Dirtiest Player on the Pitch.

Then, with a minute left, the ball fell to Toby inside the Hebden Bridge area and he sealed an 8-6 win with a deadly low shot for his fifth goal of the match and 35th of the season.