Freshfield 2nd XI 1-6 Fleetwood Hesketh
2nd February 2003

As the players arose on Sunday morning they already knew this would be a tough match, not only as Fleetwood were league leaders but because the outside conditions were terrrible. A familiar line up for the Freshie started strongly in the first 10 minutes, John Eccles and Nik Balshaw seeing shots held up in the wind as Hesketh failed to cope with the conditions. Freshfield pushed harder and a hopefull punt forward saw the Fleetwood defence in all kinds of trouble and John Eccles shot home from 15 yards. Then Hesketh woke up!! Poor Freshfield defending and poor movement when Freshfield had the ball saw Fleetwood play the better football and just after they had a decent penalty shout turned down, Hesketh got the equaliser. Too much space down the Freshfield right saw a cross between defence and goalkeeper converted with ease. To cut a long and embarrassing story short a mixture of bad defending and bad refereeing saw the Freshie concede 6 despite the efforts of Dave Seville in goal who made several saves of note including a tip over from what looked like an unstoppable shot. Freshfield are going to have to improve fast if they are to finish in the top three as the chance of promotion has all but faded now.

Team: Seville, Campbell, Knight, Dwyer (Capt), Hirst (Appleby 30), Brown, Hodges, Balshaw, Bradshaw, Kkounnouss, Eccles.
Sub Not Used: Rutherford.