Great Scott in narrow loss
THE statisticians will say that February has not been a memorable month for Skelmersdale United; four away games have brought just one point.
But is that statistic a fair analysis of Dave Powell’s team?
They have played three of the top four teams and another who has been on an excellent run of form.
The significance is that despite the stats there is definite evidence that Skelmersdale are playing a lot better and now they have a run of six games that on paper are nowhere near as difficult as the last four to back up the theorist’s opinions.
Saturday’s trip to the east coach to play third placed Scarborough saw Skem go into an early lead before they went into the interval 2-1 down, in the second-half Skelmersdale came very close to equalising in an end to end encounter, all prompting manager Dave Powell to describe the show as “Probably overall the best performance we have put in all season.”
It took Skelmersdale less than four minutes to strike.
Jordan Darr picked the ball up midway into the Scarborough half and ran at leftback Dave Merris, the Scarborough captain mistimed his tackle sending Darr to the floor and a penalty was given.
New signing Scott Bakkor quickly grabbed the ball and sent home goalkeeper Tom Taylor the wrong way as he gave Skem the lead.
Scarborough had a shot from Max Wright go narrowly wide of the Skem post on 12 minutes, it was becoming obvious that it was going to be close game.
Scarborough’s equaliser on 17 minutes was actually an own goal.
Michael Coulson crossed from the left, James Walshaw ran for the ball with Skem defender Josh Wardle at his side, Wardle stretched to get a touch on the ball before Walshaw only to see his header unluckily send the ball across Skem goalkeeper Chris Cheetham into the far top corner.
The goal lifted Scarborough and they then had a spell on the front foot and two minutes after the goal there could have been a disaster for Skelmersdale. Wright was put in behind the Skem defence and Cheetham left his area to meet him, Wright got to the ball first and Cheetham caught him with a high foot.
However, with over a thousand home supporters baying for blood referee Elliot Heward commendably kept his nerve, Wright’s run had been taking him diagonally away from goal and Mr Heward administered a yellow card to Cheetham.
Seconds before the interval Cheetham made a good save at his near-post from Wright and the ball went for a corner.
From the corner the ball was headed down to Nathan Valentine some four yards from goal, but with his back to the target, in one movement he managed to turn and slam the ball high into the roof of the net to make it 2-1 to Scarborough.
The second-half was played at a good tempo with both teams on the hunt for a goal. For Skem, Darr had a shot saved and a cross from Hulme almost caused great embarrassment to home keeper Taylor, at the other end Lewis Sugden hit a powerful drive that Cheetham tipped over his crossbar.
So it continued, plenty of attacking enterprise but two good defences. Wright brought a great diving save from Cheetham then he put in a dangerous cross that Walshaw couldn’t convert, one Skelmersdale corner bringing a bagatelle of chaos in the home defence. In the 84th minute Tom Molyneux had a rising shot tipped over the home crossbar.