Goals galore as reserves sign off

Marc Pugh - two goals

That was the way we took the lead after less than twenty minutes. Chester were already thankful to their goalkeeper for keeping them level that long but he had no chance after Marc Pugh delivered a superb ball from the left wing that had Burnley players queuing up to head home.

It was Neal Trotman who got his head on it giving the keeper no chance and the way the game had started we sat back and expected the goals to come. It doesn’t always work like that but we certainly had the chances and the assistant referee more than once halted attacks with some rather strange interpretation of the offside law.

We couldn’t add a second but there seemed no danger of Chester pulling level and during the first half they hardly troubled Mark Crossley in the Burnley goal.

The second half started quietly but Chester fought their way back with a farcical goal that was handed to them on a plate. Joel Pilkington was shielding the ball back to keeper Crossley and expecting him to come out and collect, unfortunately Crossley was waiting for Joel to play the ball.

You could see the disaster coming and it did allowing the Chester forward to slide the ball into the net for the easiest and softest of equalisers.

We’d been on top for just about an hour and yet weren’t in front, the last third of the game was to see us dominate completely and bring about a scoreline that reflected the game.

We went back in front and again it came from a left wing cross, this time from Nicky Platt. It was half cleared but only to Kyle Lafferty whose shot was blocked only for Marc Pugh to turn it in from close range.

There was no stopping the Clarets now and we went 3-1 up from, yes you’ve guessed it, a left wing cross. This time the ball came out to Joe Booth, my man of the match tonight, on the edge of the area and he made no mistake hitting home a powerful shot.

It was 4-1 shortly afterwards, and a second for Pugh, when he headed home a right wing cross from substitute Ali Akbar and that just left time for Booth to crown his display with a second but the keeper made a good save to deny him in a one-on-one as he went clear.

The result leaves the Clarets in seventh place in the Pontin’s Holiday League and a point from our last game against Oldham next week will ensure we cannot finish any lower, although we cannot go any higher.

The teams tonight were,

Burnley: Mark Crossley, Joel Pilkington, Neal Trotman, Chris McCann, Rob Henry (Martin Reilly 45), Joe Booth, Mark Yates (Nicky Platt 45), Tom Ince, Marc Pugh, Cayne Hanley (Ali Akbar 77), Kyle Lafferty. Sub not used: Michael Hale.

Chester: Waite, Hunter (Wade 84), Carney, Cooke, Ventre, Walsh, Lynch, Woolcott (McCoy 73), McEvatt, Booth, Rutherford (Mealand 77).

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