City Win at Burnley to Claim Second

BFC Resrves 0 - 1 MCFC Reserves

With Burnley comfortably winning the reserve league title they too took the opportunity to field a young side along with City. However City fielded a slightly more experienced team than they usually do with the inclusion of Tobias Johansen Clayton McDonald, Chris Ramsey, Karl Moore and the match winner Vladimir Weiss with a first half solo goal.

The game was not the greatest spectacle but it was not helped by a referee that made some poor decisions for both sides which started in the fifth minute with a blatant back pass being waved away. City were forced into an early change after Craig Frater was injured in a tackle in the tenth minute and Jeremy Helan came on to replace him.

City lined up in a four five one formation which led to a lot of midfield possession and James Poole leading the line quite well up front but on most occasions lack the support of a Stephen Ireland character running from deep to support.

Burnley should have taken the lead in the twenty eighth minute when they took a quick free kick and Burnley's James Craggs beat the offside trap but failed to be Tobias in the goal.

A minute later and James Poole made a strong run onto the edge of the penalty area but was cynically hauled back by the Burnley defender when he would have had a clear shot on goal and yet the referee failed to book the player.

Five minutes later and City did take the lead when Weiss picked the ball up on the half way line and continued to run at the Burnley defence and and side stepped challenges before moving into the area and changing direction and rounding Daniel MacDonald in the Burnley goal as he made an attempted dive for the ball but Weiss stayed steady and moved around him to fire into the goal.

City created many half chances in the second half but they came to nothing. Their best chances of the second half fell to James Poole when he received a great pass from Weiss but his finish was poor as it was well wide; is other chance he created himself but he shot straight at MacDonald.

Burnley themselves had two very fine strikes just after the half way point of the second half; the first forcing a great save from Tobias from Alex-Ray Harvey from twenty five yards and the other one from Oliver Devenney curling again from about twenty five yards but this time its direction took it straight into the arms of Tobias.

That win meant City climbed from fourth above Carlisle United and Morecambe to finish runners up in the league for the second season running. But with a lesser record this season has meant that Huddersfield has claimed the best runner up in the three divisions to claim that last play-off place.

With a very young under sixteen side playing in the academy this season it might be up in the air whether City have enough players who will benefit from playing in this league next season; but there is still time to draft more players in at the under seventeen age group to provide a squad to perform in this league.


Burnley: D MacDonald(GK), Devenney, McEneaney, Kay, Brown, C Lynch(Capt.), A MacDonald, Harvey, Craggs, Knowles, Wilson(Jackson 58)

Subs: Ritchie, Williams, D Lynch.


City: T Johansen(GK), Smith, Morris, Tsiaklis, McDonald(Capt.), Ramsey, Weiss, Carter, Poole(Grandison 88), Moore, Frater(Helan 11).

Subs: Wood(GK), Kapsalopodas, Paldan.