MATCH REPORT; Madison 2 Cheshire 2

The Celts claimed their first point of the season with a hard fought draw against Cheshire Inter. A game full of incident and intrigue ended with both teams sharing the spoils and four goals. The home team were keen to gain some form of revenge after last weeks game and for large parts of the opening twenty minutes  that's the way it looked. The Celts were full of running and passing, a clear difference from the previous week. Some of the cross field passing by Johnny B was superb with each ball slicing through a static Cheshire defence. A brand new subbing system seemed to be keeping the team fresh and focused but it didn't prevent the opening goal from going against the run of play. A brief passage of play allowed the opposition forward to get on the edge of the box and noticing The Hulk a few feet off his line he fired a looping shot that caught the goalie off guard. As he fell back like a stricken tree in the forest the ball buried itself into the back of  the net. The Celt's did not let this disappointment get to them and picked up the game by the scruff of the neck. Good link up play in the midfield and strong running up front kept the pressure on the Cheshire back four. It was therefore very gratifying to see that the Celts could also take advantage of defensive mistakes when Kevin nipped in to a back four mix up to slowly trundle the ball into the net for the equalizer. Could this be the platform to build a satisfying win on? Well no..... a few minutes later, from a position of no real danger,  a pass back from Dan to The Hulkster went horribly wrong when the irrepressible goalie decided to close both eyes and simply guess where the ball would be when he wildly lashed out at it. Unfortunately the ball was somewhere else and spun crazily over his head and was easily knocked in to the net for another goal for Cheshire. The half ended with the Celts frustrated but not down hearted as they felt they were always in the game. Even the two goals couldn't take the shine off the fact that the defence was playing well with Tim in a 'none shall pass mood'.  The second half was similar to the first with the Celts playing strongly without really threatening the opposition goal. The game then looked to be slipping away from them when a ref called a penalty on Johnny B. But the Hulk started his amazing second half journey back from goal keeping Hell by bringing off a superb save. For the next ten minutes or so he and Tim then fended off a number of Cheshire attacks as they tried to kill off the game. The Celts were still making good attacking runs and great cross field passing and incisive runs were in evidence. But the equalizing goal again came from the result of a  goalkeeping error when Kevin latched on to a horrendous missed ball to slot home the tie up goal. The Celts could have won the game at this point but a second inexplicable yellow card for hand ball saw Tano getting his marching orders and the Celts drop to ten men for the last ten minutes of the game. They held on for  a well deserved point but it could have been so much more

Man Of the Match;  Another strong day from Johnny B, Jim and David in midfield as well as a great debut performance from Dustin. But the MOM goes to Tim for some great defending and brave tackling