I thought someone would have posted by now and so I will post my thoughts on the game..
No rain, overcast and quite mild and playing surface seemed in good condition. Good crowd, about 6800 was it that was announced. Best of the season. Over 2400 Vale fans very vocal and so great atmosphere as expected.
We scored within six minutes when their goalie fumbled the ball and left Wintle an easy header past him into the net and we then shortly after, the goalie did much the same thing and we had another chance to score and the GK went to pieces, confidence shot and he then booted the ball into the main stand and some think he feigned an injury to get off asap and so he did to be replaced by a youngish keeper. He did OK afterwards actually apart from the 93rd minute. I felt sorry for the first GK tbh. Not nice to see..
We perhaps controlled the game for about 35 minutes until they got a penalty and it seemed an obvious decision where I was and Popey placed a near perfect pen to Ben's left and gave him no chance. Up to then don't think they came anywhere close to scoring of shooting at our goal. I thought we were OK and they were poor up to then. However that changed the whole game for me as they gained in confidence and we were on the back foot for perhaps most of the game afterwards imo and we didn't create that much in the second half. Some think we should have been two or three up at HT though.
In the second half they then scored a peach of a goal from 25 yards that went in off the post and no real surprise to me. We then had a great chance to equalise as Bowery was six yards out and just the keeper to beat and he lashed at the ball so hard it ended up on Nantwich Road and thought he may or imo should have been subbed at that point. After DA made two subs with about 25 mins to go, we did start to create a bit more and thought we were headed for a 2-1 defeat with many ready on the concourse to leave and we got a great goal in the 94th minute with some neat passing to Kirk who took his chance brilliantly to slot the ball past the Vale Keeper. And the main stand went wild as though we had won the game and shows how much this fixture meant to us...
There was a very heavy police presence around Gresty Road and Nantwich Road and there was a little bit of a fans invasion on the pitch and indeed ours did too after Kirk scored. Nothing bad though.
2-2 was a very fair result imo as having one half each. Others may see it differently. We both live to fight another day next season imo.
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