Emley see red in latest defeat
AFC Emley’s miserable run of form continued with a 4-1 home defeat to third from bottom Ollerton Town – and they also had a man sent off for the second game in a row after Andrew Horbury’s dismissal.
With Adam Ledger’s suspension from his red card at Parkgate kicking in, Jake Bird was given the gloves and it will be a day he will want to forget.
Ollerton were three goals up inside 16 minutes and the game was effectively over as a contest.
Bird was called into action as early as the second minute and Ollerton continued to push before King broke the deadlock on 12 minutes.
Worse was to come for Bird and Emley, as just a minute or so later, another well-worked move saw King beat Bird again with a low shot to the keeper’s right. Then King stepped up and fired in from a freekick for his hat-trick in just four minutes. Emley, to their credit, did finally start to make inroads. Their first real attack came 20 minutes in after good work by Shane Hamilton.
With his back to goal, he laid a neat ball off to George Whittaker, whose shot was saved by the Ollerton keeper.
Michael Tunnacliffe then tried a spectacular overheard kick from inside the 18-yard box but it went over.
Emley then had their best spell of the game leading up to half-time as Whittaker had another shot saved by Leverton.
After the break there was a 10-minute spell all about Horbury. The Emley striker found the back of the net just after the hour, but turned to see an offside flag raised. He then saw a header go just wide, before a few moments of madness – first, a yellow card for a poor challenge, then just a couple minutes later he was shown another yellow for a deliberate handball.
Moving Wayne Hughes to centreforward paid off as he finally got Emley on the scoresheet with five minutes remaining – a beauty from just over the half-way line.
But then Bird went to clear the ball downfield and smashed his effort straight into the on-running Hewitt and into the back of the net.