Sept 2 AFC Bournemouth 3-2 Oldham Athletic Att: 4838

Last updated : 03 September 2006 By Andy Burton
On a fine (!) Saturday afternoon at the beginning of September, with the rain lashing down, aided with by a very gusty wind, it felt more like an October storm was brewing!

Anyway, for me, it was nice to be back in to the routine of going to/from football having endured some dire commentary on the radio since the start of the season! Had we really been that bad? Time to judge for myself!

The game started brightly enough, but it was Oldham who were creating the better early chances playing with the wind at their backs.

Sewart was called in to action on several occassions to keep Oldham at bay. Two great tip overs were called for to keep the scores level. Both resulting corners didn't amount to much!

Then the moment I'd been waiting for! A ball in from Cooke found Hayter, his first time shot on the angle from the edge of the penalty area nestled nicely in the back of the net! Simply a superb strike on the half hour mark.

Bournemouth were enjoying a purple patch at this stage of the game as we piled on the pressure.

We thought that Best had added a second. Despite the ball crossing the line, it was ruled out for shirt tugging. Cooper should have scored too following a trademark Cummings run down the left!! The ball just wouldn't come down for him, which meant that it was easy for the Oldham keeper to deflect the ball for a corner.

For all the pressure, the reward came in the 43rd minute when a Cooper chip to the far post found Hayter to head home for his, and our, second of the afternoon.

HT: 2-0

Well, if I thought that we were capable of repeating our first half exploits, then I was wrong! Talk about Jeckell and Hyde!! I could not believe that we have the ability to press the self destruct button quite so easily!

We had barely played 7 seconds at the start of the second half when Oldham were gifted a penalty from nothing! The ball was pumped long from the restart, Eddie Howe was in the area with his hand up, the next thing we knew was that the ball had come down and it simply touched his hand! Liddell took great delight in converting the penalty!

From that moment, Oldham looked like the home side, we looked nervous and desperate to concede an equaliser!

In one incident, the ball was left by 2 defenders, and Stewart, with an Oldham's Liddell bearing down with the intent to nick the ball. Thankfully someone was alive to what was about to happen and the ball was cleared.

Warren Cummings had a fantastic run again, his shot needed the full weight of the keepers body behind it!

Leon Best .......... is he the new Warren Feeney? Full of pace and enthusiasm, but seems to be less than keen to pass when there are better options available as opposed to running in to trouble! Browning came on for Best on 67 minutes to save the ref showing Best a red card given the way in which Best was too keen to dive in for challenges!

Brownings first contribution was to produce a way-ward back pass. Liddell pounced to get the ball, Stewart came charging out of his area, the resulting chip was thinkfully wide of the target!

Oldham also managed to miss an open goal!

Eventually we couldn't hold on any longer when Liddell produced a carbon copy of Hayter's first goal on 79 minutes! The equaliser was no more than our visitors deserved!

The, bizarrely, we managed to produce, and play a get out of jail free card (again) in the 92 minute. The ball was floated in from a corner, the ball bounced around after the keeper failed to hold, only to land at the feet of Marcus Browning to bury the ball in the top centre of the goal! His first goal in 3 years! Cue celebrations among the small number of fans who stayed right to the end! This winner was so undeserved!

Well, I'll have to come back next week to see if we can improve the good bits and not be so keen to concede!

Man Of The Match
Jamie Hayter for his two goals!

AFCB: Stewart, Purches, Broadhurst, Howe, Cummings, Cooke, Cooper, Hayter, Foley, Best, Fletcher
Subs: Moss, Browning (on for Best, 67), Maher (for Cooke, 87), Hollands, Pitman (on for Howe, 87)
Andy Burton, Portsmouth