Last gasp FC United draw eight goal thriller with Warrington Town

First Posted ~ 17:10 Sat 29 Feb 2020 News ID ~ 8650 Last Updated ~ 05:02 Wed 4 Mar 2020

Curtis Jones scored a 96th minute equaliser to clinch a sensational 4-4 draw at home to Warrington Town on Saturday afternoon after FC United had thrown away a 2-0 lead.An end-to-end encounter saw the Reds go 2-0 up through Morgan Homson-Smith and Tunde Owolabi after 39 minutes but the visitors quickly hit back. Former FC United striker Jordan Buckley scored twice in five minutes on his return to Broadhurst Park to make it all square at the break.Town went into the lead for the first time less than 10 minutes into the second half through Jack Mackreth. Paul Ennis’ penalty then made it 3-3 after 63 minutes but seven minutes later Warrington were ahead again as captain Mark Roberts bagged the fourth.With time running out, FC United won a free-kick 35 yards out. A good ball out to the right was crossed in by captain Michael Potts to the far post where Jones headed home a priceless equaliser to send the majority of the 2,088 supporters in attendance wild.Having gone 2-0 up with just six minutes left in the first half, FC United wouldn’t have expected to need a last gasp goal to get anything from the contest. But with the score being 4-3 to the visitors as the five added minutes elapsed Jones’ goal gave the Reds an unlikely point.Homson-Smith opened the scoring for the Reds after just eight minutes when a free-kick from the right hand side of the box took a deflection on the way through, wrong footing Warrington ‘keeper Bobby Jones to fly into the unguarded side of the net.Both teams had good opportunities to get the second goal of the game but it was Owolabi who did. The league’s toper scorer netted his first goal in six games, converting a rebound from an Ennis shot. At this point, it was looking like another three points for the Reds.However, two goals in five minutes levelled things up for the visitors. The first coming from a low ball from the left across the six-yard box and Buckley got a touch on it at the far post to make it 2-1. Moments later, Buckley got the equaliser with a ‘freak’ goal, as a lofted cross from the left got caught by the wind, catching Belford off guard and swung towards goal, dropping into the top corner of the goal, to give us an unexpected 2-2 scoreline at the break.Town soon went into a 3-2 lead but FC kept coming forward looking for a way back into the game. Just after the hour mark, a late challenge on Adam Dodd gave FC United the perfect opportunity from the spot. Ennis coolly fired the ball home to make things all square again and to finely set the match up for the last 30 minutes.The visitors had the lead once more less than 10 minutes later, as Belford could only paw a strike on goal into the path of Roberts, who put it away and gave Town the lead for the second time.The match stats show that FC United had almost 70% possession on the day and it would be interesting to see what the possession was in the last 20 minutes, with the home team seemingly having the ball at every opportunity, throwing everything they could into getting back into this game. Owolabi went close a couple of times and Potts forced goalkeeper Bobby Jones into a great, finger-tip save to keep the visitors ahead.Town adopted a few ‘game management’ tactics to run down the clock and that coupled with all six substitutes gave us five minutes of added time (or Fergie time, depending on which club’s Twitter feed you follow) to make something happen. Could they score? They always score. And so it proved as FC United once again showed they never know when they are beaten, this time with a 96th minute equaliser.For the neutral, or any fan looking back with retrospect, the game was a magnificent example of football and was a fantastic match-up of two teams chasing down play-off spots in the final third of the season, and either team could have made an argument for a better result on the day.FC United now have a week to recover before they travel to Mickleover Sports next Saturday, looking to keep the pressure on the leaders South Shield, who extended their lead over us to six points on Saturday afternoon.Website reporter’s man of the match: Michael Potts. Gave everything in the middle of the park and almost grabbed the equaliser himself late on. He provided the cross for the equaliser and as captain was the first to give some ’constructive criticism’ to others after any mistakes or poor choices.Report by Craig Phillips