Bamber Bridge 0 - 1 Farsley Celtic
It was a chilly November afternoon ahead of the FA Trophy second round tie between Bamber Bridge and Farsley Celtic, and both sides came into the game on similar runs of form.
Brig came into the match off the back of a 3-2 loss away to Matlock last weekend to make it just two wins from the last 6 games, whilst a 1-0 loss away to Kidderminster Harriers stretched Farsley’s form to just one win in 5 to leave them in 18th place in the Vanarama National League North.
The match started with both teams having a fair share of the ball but it was Bamber Bridge’s Mark Cullen who had two golden opportunities to open the scoring after 10 minutes, striking the post on the volley in the first instance and shooting straight at goalkeeper Kieran Flavell in the next.
Despite Brig’s early dominance, it was Farsley who took the lead after a whipped corner caused panic in the Brig box and the ball was turned in by captain Conor Branson at the near post after 22 minutes.
Brig responded well to Farsley’s opener and were almost rewarded just before half time after Adam Dodd’s bursting run from central defence allowed him to find Potts in space inside the penalty area and his shot towards the top left corner was brilliantly saved by Flavell.
With Farsley leading at the break, the restart saw Brig continue to dominate and they almost made it count after Potts broke through one-on-one with Flavell, but the keeper stood tall to deny Brig of an equaliser once again.
Brig did everything they could and had plenty of chances but they were all rebuffed by Kieran Flavell, who put up a stellar performance on his debut for the visitors.
The Briggers pushed and pushed but time was against them as the full time whistle drew the game to a close with Farsley progressing to the third round of the FA Trophy.
Bamber Bridge manager Jamie Milligan said that his team have got to be ‘more composed in the final third.’
“The stuff we’ve worked on is coming out and you could see it’s coming out we’re getting into that final third.
“We haven’t got that pace anymore because [Lucas] Weaver’s left us so we’ve got to try and play a different way and the lads are getting it, we’re creating chances but we’ve just got to be a little bit more composed in the final third and we should have easily scored four or five today.”
Brig now look ahead to Tuesday’s Lancashire FA Challenge Trophy second round tie away to Vanarama National League North leaders Chorley.
Match reporter: Morgan Bennion
