Ollerton Town U19 4 v Harworth Colliery Institute U19 4 - PSF

Monday 30th July 2012, at Walesby Lane
Pre Season Friendly
Ollerton Town U19 (1) 4
Ashley Ellis 42, Jermaine Brown 73,
Lewis English 82, Jordan Lamb 88
Harworth Colliery U19 (2) 4
Danny Siddell 4, Daine McGrain 13, 46,
Lewis Elwood 65
Thanks to Liam Kent for the Ollerton team details
These two sides will come face to face this coming season in the newly restructured North Midlands Under 19's League, Division 2, along with: Basford United, Buxton, Carlton Town, Dunkirk, Maltby Main, Matlock Town, Parkgate, Sandiacre Town and West Bridgford Colts. A division which looks to have the makings of a highly competitive season ... and going by tonight's game, there could be a lot of thrills and spills, entertainment and goals along the way too.
Ollerton usually wear red for home games, but tonight, both teams took to the field wearing orange shirts, so the referee asked the home side to wear vests over theirs, which explains why it looks more like a training session than a practice match in the attached photographs.
Harworth got off to a flying start and were ahead inside the first five minutes, when Danny Siddell knocked the ball home from close range following a right wing corner.
Siddell put in a great effort tonight, busting a gut to be on the end of everything and making a real nuisance of himself for the Ollerton defence.
Alas, the game finished prematurely, just as it was entering second half stoppage time, when Danny twisted and turned awkwardly while bringing the ball under control and ended up on the deck crying out in pain having strained his ankle ligaments.
The Harworth management team were quickly on the scene, along with people from Ollerton offering assistance, while an ambulance was summoned ... it arrived quickly, while poor Danny, obviously in a lot of pain, was still laying where he'd fallen.
X-rays have revealed nothing is broken, but it will be a while until the full extent of the strain is determined.
Hopefully the injury will heal swiftly, but don't over do it or rush things Danny ... all the best for a full recovery, milk the attention while you can.
Back tracking slightly, Daine McGrain put Harworth further in front, following some neat play down the left flank on 13 minutes.
It's evident that there are plenty of goals in this Harworth side, but after Danny Siddell had fired narrowly over from inside the six yard box after McGrain had unselfishly put the ball across the face of goal to him, after muscling his way into the box from the right flank, Ollerton grabbed a goal back on 42 minutes, when Ashley Ellis hooked the ball home inside the box, after the visitors defence had made hard work of clearing their lines.
Before the break, McGrain had a blistering shot well blocked by the Ollerton keeper and then Mitchell Lax, shot narrowly wide of both the left hand and right hand in quick succession in the 45th minute.
Harworth should've been well in front by the break, but when they attacked, Ollerton too, showed they could pass the ball round and play a bit too ... and the goal had served as a warning that they were more than willing to chase the game if needs be.
The second half was only a minute old, when Daine McGrain beat 'Brandon' in the Ollerton goal, in a 50/50 race for the ball and put the visitors 3-1 ahead.
And on 65 minutes, Harworth looked to have made the win safe when Lewis Ellwood latched on to a rebound inside the Ollerton box and fired home the Colliery side's fourth goal of the night.
In a league game situation, I'm sure Harworth would have shut up shop and defended three well won points now.
But these friendlies are for trying new players and ideas out, so they didn't sit back and rest on their laurels, which meant the fresh blood that Ollerton had introduced from the bench had a chance to show what they could do and try to make their mark on the game too.
Jermaine Brown found himself some space out on the right wing and knocked a teasing cross into the Harworth box. As Tom Hogg ran out to collect it, the spinning ball swerved viscously, which wrong-footed the Harworth keeper and ended up in the back of the net.
Whether it was an intentional moment of ingenuity or a bit of a fluke, the score was now 2-4 and Ollerton were pushing forward and getting into the game more and more.
"You want fining for that one Hoggy!" joked one of his team mates as they lined up for the restart, before calling out to the goalscorer "No way did you mean to get that", Jermaine just smiled knowingly.
At 4-1, an away win had looked like a formality, but Ollerton had other ideas in the last twenty minutes.
Harworth, again, struggled to deal with the ball in their own box ... and a clearance, hooked away from the danger zone at the expense of a corner, was intercepted by Lewis English before it went out of play and Ollerton were right back in the game at 3-4, as English fired from a tight angle in the six yard box.
At the other end, Danny Siddell narrowly failed to reach the ball, as Harworth went in search of a match winning goal ... but Ollerton weren't finished yet.
On 88 minutes, a right wing corner into the mix, found an Ollerton forward, who powered a goal-bound shot on target, Tom Hogg got across well to pull off a great save, but cruelly for the visitor's number 1, Jordan Lamb was on hand to crash the ball home for the equaliser, there was nothing Hogg could've done to stop that one!
Being philosophical, from an Harworth perspective: at 4-1, in a 'proper' game, they would've defended the lead and not let Ollerton dictate the last 15 minutes or so like that.
One of Ollerton's goals was a bit fortunate and the visitors will have picked up a few valuable lessons about avoiding making individual errors in their own box ... because, ultimately, one or two of those proved costly in the end.
But it was only a friendly, when all is said and done and these are the sort of games where you can work on these things and iron them out.
Besides, although they'll need to make a few tweaks at the back, at times, Harworth looked awesome going forward.
From Ollerton's angle: It's never over until the final whistle and they deserve a lot of credit for the way they kept plucking away and not giving up on the game ... even when they were 4-1 down with 17 minutes remaining.
And young Jermaine Brown looked like a great prospect when he came on as a sub in the second half. His contribution in overcoming the three goal deficit shouldn't be under estimated.
I expect that it'll be a tighter game when they meet in the league this season.
Take nothing away from Ollerton who worked hard to make such a dramatic late comeback, but Harworth must be wondering how they didn't win tonight and will be ruing a few of their missed chances earlier in the game.
But the flaws they revealed in defence during the last 15 minutes are things they'll be able to work on and put right in the run up to the new season ... and besides, the awful injury suffered by Danny Siddell, put everything else into perspective.

GET WELL SOON DANNY!