Goals come out of cold storage

Published on Saturday 5 December 2009 09:42

ON a morning so cold that both teams retreated to the nearby woods for shelter at half-time, Musselburgh Windsor thawed out in time to complete a comeback from a goal down and beat Tranent Colts 2-1 in the South East Region Youth FA's under-13 League Division 1 fixture.

Both teams began the game at the foot of the table with no points to show for their combined efforts, but something had to give at Pinkie Playing Fields as the sides looked to get off the mark for the season.

Though both teams created chances, the standout feature of the first half was undoubtedly the freezing conditions in which the players persevered admirably.

After the break, Tranent opened the scoring through Liam Hastie, but a freak free-kick by Windsor's Ryan Hutchison was swiftly followed by a winning goal for the hosts' Nicholas Todder five minutes from full-time.

Windsor were led forward by their inspirational winger Lloyd Fiddler in the opening stages, as the No.14 showed great confidence and adventure in testing Tranent's resistance on the right flank.

The closest Windsor came to their opponents' goal, however, was when Michael Gray cut the ball back from the bye-line into a dangerous area, but Colts defender Keiran Gracey was on hand to make a vital clearance.

At the other end, Hastie forced an effort at goal shortly before the interval, but his strike was deflected wide of the left-hand post after Windsor had failed to clear a corner.

Tranent's right-winger Connor Lawrie, keen to emulate the impact of his opposite number Fiddler, teed-up Kieran Watters for a pop at goal shortly after the restart, but before Watters could even pull the trigger, Windsor goalkeeper Robbie Costello dived at the feet of the attacker to block.

Although Watters regained the ball as it spun loose, an alert Ryan Quinn was ideally placed to block the Tranent boy's second attempt. Windsor counter-attacked immediately and had the ball in the net within seconds, but Rhys Surgeon had taken up an offside position before turning in Ryan Hutchison's fierce drive.

Hastie broke the deadlock on 45 minutes, eventually turning in a left-wing cross after Costello had blocked his initial attempt.

Tranent's lead was to last a little over ten minutes, but not before Hastie had gone close twice more. His first effort – a header – was cleared off the line by Hutchison, and he later spurned a glorious chance when one-on-one with Costello, firing past the right-hand post.

Hutchison, when not blocking Tranent's route to goal, was busy at the other end pulling his side level. His 58th minute free-kick was delivered from far on the right with enough venom that, even when it evaded everyone in the penalty area, it still had the legs to make its way past goalkeeper Kieran MacFarlane and into the net. It was to get worse for debutant MacFarlane five minutes later, as soon after Quinn had struck Tranent's crossbar, Todder gobbled up the next chance, a low shot towards the right-hand corner sealing victory for Windsor.

Musselburgh Windsor: Robbie Costello, Blair Millar, Nicholas Waddell, Scott Henderson, Ryan Hutchison, Rhys Surgeon, Gray, Ryan Quinn, James Livingstone, Lloyd Fiddler, Jack Dunn, Nicholas Todder.

Tranent Colts: Kieran MacFarlane, Keiran Gracey, Jack Wright, Aaron Waugh, Kyle Baker, Connor Lawrie, Kieran Watters, Jack Shanks, Liam Hastie, Ryan Flanigan, Joshua Jack, Zac Jones, Liam Henderson, Sean Turnbull, Glen Shields.