A Fleetwood Town XI 2 A Blackpool XI 1

Wednesday August 1st 2007 Pre Season Friendly

Crowd 207

Goals: FTFC - Liam Maloney (65min), Adam Crossley (72min) BFC - Matt Lawlor (88min)

Blackpool, with a team comprising mainly of young professionals and triallists*, had originally scheduled this fixture against a Lancaster City team but, when that was cancelled at the last moment, Steve Edwards offered to ‘give them a game’ using his Reserve squad bolstered by a couple of first team players. As word got around, however, it appears that quite a number of the first team had a free evening and ‘didn’t mind a bit of a game’, and so, come kick off, Mr Edwards had assembled quite an interesting group of players.

Fleetwood opened well, with Milligan and Allen both working hard, finding and exploiting open spaces but, like the encounter a couple of weeks ago, Blackpool gradually worked themselves into the game and, for the rest of the first half, both teams played nice football but were unable to convert the few chances that were created.

The second half opened with much the same pattern for the first 15 minutes until, with coaches starting to introduce their substitutes, the play opened up and both teams ‘gave it a go’. With Milligan pushing probing passes in for Foster and Taylor, both had good chances before, picking up another through ball, Foster set up Liam Maloney popping up on the left for his first Fleetwood goal in the 65^th minute. The game was now in a very entertaining phase with the young subs Warwick and Crossley galloping forward into open space at every opportunity. Taylor was unlucky to have one Warwick cross picked off his head by the keeper shortly before Adam Crossley, through again, slotted in an excellent goal - almost as good as the celebratory gymnastics. Blackpool were clearly feeling a little embarrassed at this point and found another gear in order to create several good scoring chances. Poor finishing let them down however until, in the last seconds of the game, Matt Lawlor, who had wandered upfield in support of the cause, thumped in a scorcher from outside the area. Mark Smith did well to get his hands on it, but he couldn’t get it round the post.

This was another good value friendly for the fans. It was good to see the skills and confidence of the young players; and it was good to see the forwards looking more cohesive.

FTFC Squad: Mike Hale, Guy Heffernan, Ben Buschini, Martin Moran, Mike Tallentire, Mark Davis, Liam Maloney, Jamie Milligan, Steve Foster, Alex Taylor, Richie Allen, Dax Hoogerwerf, Ryan Croft, Kyle Webster, Anthony Warwick, Jamie Wright, Mark Smith, James Barrow and Adam Crossley

Blackpool Squad: Lewis Edge, Matt Lawlor, Kent O’Connor, Phil Doughty, Amie Lavie, Danny Penswick, Scott Metcalfe, Adrian Forbes, Phil Marsh, John Smith, Tom Lyons, Danny Midgeley, Ashton Bayliss, Dale Warburton, Alex Smith and Patrick Jones. *The Blackpool triallists were strikers Phil Marsh (Man Utd) and John Smith (Wigan), winger Tom Lyons (Ex Crystal Palace), defender Kent O'Connor (1860 Munich) and Amie Lavie (French centre half).

Officials: Dave Holloway (Referee), P Hodgkinson and D Livery