Fleetwood Town fell to a narrow 2-1 defeat to Port Vale on the opening day of the Sky Bet League One season on Saturday afternoon.
Dan Batty opened the scoring early on, but two goals within three minutes from the hosts put the game in the hosts' favour. Even though Town created chances throughout the game after conceding, it wasn’t meant to be as it ended in a loss.
It was Town who started out the better side as they broke the deadlock just seven minutes into the clash. New signing Promise Omochere picked up the ball in the Vale box and crossed to Batty – our top scorer in pre-season – who volleyed the ball home from 12-yards.
The home side then came into the clash as Mal Benning played a deep free-kick towards Ben Garrity on the edge of the box, whose shot went wide of the near post, not troubling Jay Lynch.
Fleetwood worked the ball down the other end, and played a lobbed through ball for Paddy Lane to run onto. He then found the feet of goal scorer Batty, but Aiden Stone stopped his near post effort.
A quickfire brace from the Valiants changed the game around the half-hour mark as defenders Smith and Hall both found the net from different set-pieces, meaning they would take the lead in the clash before the half.
It was a close-fought second half with a lack of chances for both sides. A worrying part of the early action in the second period was when Omochere went down holding his face after a collision with Smith – he had to be brought off after the challenge.
With 15 minutes to go, substitute Ellis Harrison came close to levelling up the score line as he managed to get on the end of a corner kick from Danny Andrew, but his effort from 16-yards was deflected away from goal by a Vale defender.
The last chance of the game fell to the hosts as Rory Holden took a free-kick from range for the Valiants, which was blocked by Joe Garner’s face, which seemed to do some damage as he stayed on the ground. Luckily, he was back up and playing soon after.
Vale XI: Stone (GK), Cass (Forrester 80’), Hall, Smith (C), Worrall, Garrity, Benning (Hussey 90+5'), Proctor, Ojo, Charsley (Conlon 90+5'), McDermott (Holden 66’).
Unused subs: Jones, Walker, Small.
Town XI: Lynch (GK), Andrew, Wiredu (G.Garner 60’), Morris (Harrison 60’), Vela (C), Lane (Hayes 84’), Holgate (Earl 84’), Omochere (J.Garner 70’), Nsiala, Batty, Johnston.
Unused subs: Cairns (GK), Baggley.