| Gadeside Reserves claimed their second win in a row after coming from a goal down against an organised Carefree Athletic who had scored 9 goals in their opening 2 games of the season. A makeshift starting XI saw Matt Day don the goalkeeper gloves for the first time in years. John Gooden made his Gadeside debut in the centre of midfield alongside skipper Cassidy, with Ben Higginson returning to sure up the back line. |
| Rangers started strong and the tempo for the first half was spot on, closing down was great throughout and Rangers dominated the midfield, chances were few and far between then on 25 minutes a swirling cross was met by Cassidy who couldn’t quite get the connection to turn the ball goalwards. The last 15 of the half saw Carefree come back into the game, and they almost took the lead in freakish fashion when a Matt Day kick was volleyed straight back by the Carefree midfielder, luckily the ball bounced over the bar. He then redeemed himself with a smart save down to his left with the Carefree Striker through 1 on 1. The scores remained level at half time but Rangers were the better side, and impressively in comparison to last season were winning the battle physically. |
| The second half went in the same way with Gadeside pushing on for the win, it became a bit more end to end. Then on the hour a Carefree corner was converted from a free header into the near post. This only seemed to fire up Gadeside and the inspired substitution of Weirnek for Rojo saw the Italian playmaker set up Ashby for the equaliser after only being on the pitch 2 minutes. Shortly after he turned goal provider to goal scorer, when his looping cross evaded everyone including the keeper, and nestled nicely in the bottom right corner of the net. |
| Rangers then held on and maybe should have gained further advantage with Byrne lobbing the onrushing keeper only to see his shot go over, Cassidy could have also sealed it when the keeper cleared straight to him, he took a touch and got his angles wrong, with his dipping effort falling JUST wide. The best performance thus far and hopefully the start of a solid looking push towards the summit of Division 4. |
| Matt Day, Paul Bangs, Gavin Parsons, Joe Bennett, Ben Higginson, Mark Cassidy, Mike Ashby, John Gooden, Michael Kayembe, Will Byrne, Bartosz Wiernik (Meren Rojo) |