[themaclad]

About 15 years ago the Lancashire Junior Cup was quite a competition to win, finals were always played at league grounds I have seen final at Deepdale, Ewood Park, Burnden Park, Wigan's old ground at Springfield Park with some really good games of football. As is the want of modern day football the better non league clubs in Lancashire tend to treat the competition as an irrelevance which is a shame really and tend to play weakened sides.
Lancaster went down this line last season playing thier reserves against Clitheroe and duly got spanked,this year given the change of management at the club the club seem to be making an attempt to try and go well in the competition, therefore last night they put out a strongish side against Darwen who play in the North West counties league 1 on league below Lancaster.
The 96 who turned up to watch the game got a decent 90 minutes, unlike some cup competitions which are played at half pace, this was full on committment from the begining.
Darwen started the brighter and on 10 minutes took the lead when Langford curled a shot around Hale from 18 yards, City struggled to get to grips playing against a very strong wind and against a very young side who were intent on doing a bit of damage to the side from the higher league, a furious pace to the game with the odd naughty challenge Marshall and Langford receiving a long lecture from the referee after a bit of head confrontation after a challenge.
City started to make progress and although had plenty of the ball the only effort of note was a Winder effort which went well over the bar.
On the half hour the dynamics of the game changed when Darwen's keeper Windle collided with a City forward and had too go of with concussion. Having no sub keeper, one of the central defenders went in goal. His first touch was to pick the ball out of the net as Clark potted home from close range following a corner. City went into the break 2-1 when Winder easily slotted home from 12 yards on the stroke of half time.
City were clueless in he second half failing to take the conditions into account and also Darwen's lack of a keeper, no efforts on target, Clark tried to dribble his way past the keeper but was forced wide and the chance was lost.
By now Darwen realised they had a chance of getting into the game and were by far the better team and deservedly were level on the hour when Coote headed home from a corner. Crosses into the box were causing City problems and they were hanging on against the visitors until 13 minutes to go when Hessian's powerful run took him past three players into the box his past found Hepple who found the net from 12 yards. A shock was on the cards as City racked up the pressure the sub keeper got lucky when a flicked header from his own defender drifted narrowly past the far post, he made one decent save as City finally got an effort on target.
With time running out Russell levelled with a shot I was directly behind and I knew it was going in, keeper and defender never moved as the ball ended up in the bottom left hand corner.
Darwen were momentarily down to 10 men when City scored the winner, Russell's first shot was well saved by the keeper but the rebound ran to ex Morecambe player Danny Carlton who took an age to finally put the ball into the net. City duly played out the final few minutes in the Darwen half to go through to the next round.
Darwen did not deserve to lose.

Lancaster City 4 Darwen 3 Att 96

Next up Bamber Bridge v Lancaster on Saturday providing it stops raining.