Cup progress for youths

The game started scrappily with Oldham looking the more determined side, closing us down and snapping into the tackle. Indeed the first chance came for the hosts as they broke down the left, with the winger firing in a fierce shot from a tight angle which Stef Ritchie did well to keep out.

Oldham then had a free kick blocked on the line by centre-half Nik Kudiersky and we managed to scramble the ball away. It was a typical Oldham performance with plenty of verbal, especially from their captain who I was told came from our Centre of Excellence.

After around 30 minutes, with the opposition running out of steam and ideas, we started to get the ball down and play. James Craggs won a corner and put in a great deep cross to the head of Kudiersky. His bullet header back across goal was the perfect set-up for a lurking Wes Fletcher to volley home.

Another Craggs corner was met by Michael King who saw his header plucked from under the bar. With 5 minutes remaining in the half Liam Newman laid a pass off just inside the Oldham half. It was then fed to Fletcher, who rounded the centre half, moved into the box and slid the ball past the keeper for his, and the Clarets, 2^nd of the game.

Burnley started the 2^nd half on top, much to the annoyance of some of the Oldham team. Indeed their captain managed to talk the ref into dishing out a yellow card to Chris Anderson.

The chances continued to come though and when Fletcher was felled on the edge of the box Chris Lynch stepped up to fire a free kick goal wards. When it was blocked it fell to Fletcher who produced another save from the keeper.

Against the run of play Oldham broke through the middle, with their hard working number 9 in possession. He unselfishly squared the ball to the left winger who gleefully slammed home to give the hosts a glimmer of a chance.

We looked rattled for a time and the Oldham bench began to help their captain in their efforts to referee the game. The man in black proceeded to make some bizarre decisions at some home team prompting and even his assistant was seen to shake his head and chuckle at a number of them.

Eventually we settled down to playing some football again. We broke down the right and profited from a mix up between the Oldham keeper and right-back. They tangled and the ball bobbled loose into the path of Fletcher, who rifled home his hat trick goal, much to the delight of a Claret from Suffolk.

We then suffered a blow as Kudiersky had to leave the field after having had treatment several times on a calf complaint. He was replaced by Dil Chaggar who moved to right back, with Dan Brown coming inside.

By this time though, Oldham had just about shot their bolt. Their captain did find enough time to talk Alex-Ray Harvey into the referees' notebook though. Dom Knowles replaced the hat trick hero and we played out the game with no further incident.

We had been treated to the usual good game of football we have come to expect from visits to Oldham with plenty of skill and endeavour on show and thankfully we can now look forward to the next round of the competition.

Team :- Stef Ritchie, Dan Brown, Jake McEneaney, Chris Lynch, Nik Kudiersky (Dil Chaggar), Michael King, James Craggs, Chris Anderson, Alex-Ray Harvey, Liam Newman, Wes Fletcher (Dom Knowles)