Bramhall Rangers 9 - Northern Canaries 7

"I think that was a moment of cool panic there."

Ron Atkinson

The ‘hall were up against old rivals Northern Canaries last night in what to proved to be quite a physical affair. Rangers seemed to be the better team but made hard work of it and at times looked close to losing the lead.

The lineup was promising for Bramhall with the regular solid defence of Shiz and Nev along with more attacking regulars Pie, Big Pete and Mini. Lifey was also brought in to add some flair to the team and another pair of striking boots. Belly was in net, minus the glasses of wine this time.

The Canaries seemed to have the usual suspects along with someone not seen before, and no subs which was an obvious advantage for Bramhall.

Things began well for the Rangers with Mini and Lifey opening up the scoring. As the first half went on some defensive and goalkeeping faults led to a couple of Canaries goals. Belly was having trouble with throw outs, giving the opposition the ball several times. Nev and Shiz also came to his aid on a number of occasions, one in particular involving Shiz running most of the length of the pitch to cut out a one-on-one.

Belly did do something to repay his debt – when Lifey’s foot encroached in the area it was a Canaries penalty, and Belly managed to dive the right way and save Speccy’s attempt.

At the other end of the pitch there were some good scoring opportunities, but some shots were off target and the Canaries keeper was doing a good job of keeping the others out of the net.

The game soon began getting quite physical with a number of slides by both teams and lots of pushing. The ref was having none of it and seemed to be doing a good job of keeping the game going.

At half time it was something in the region of 5-2 to Bramhall, what seems to be a fairly common score line these days for the ‘hall.

By now the Rangers seem to realise not to drop the pressure in the second half and went into it full pelt.

The second half saw a lot more physical play, including Shiz going into a Canaries player (the one who likes to shout at anyone who’ll listen) and flooring him in the corner of Bramhall’s half. The ref had a word but Shiz was having none of it and rightly told the Canaries player not to be such a big girl (or something of that persuasion).

As the Rangers became riled by the physical play the Canaries took advantage and began closing the gap. But this was never for long and the Rangers soon answered back each time with more goals, a lot of which seemed to come from Canaries mistakes and were skillfully pounced on.

The second half also saw a lot more of Lifey, the Rangers ringer who started telling the ref how to do his job and giving as good as he got from the Canaries physical play. Perhaps he had heard about the old bet on who could floor the spectacled Canary first – when he was given a shove by said Canary he pushed back twice, perhaps thrice as hard and floored the poor guy.

The ref didn’t hesitate to send Lifey off for two minutes. This left the Rangers with a man down and the defending was superb during this time. The Canaries did well trying to take advantage of the extra man but never managed to get a goal during that time.

As the half went on more goals were scored by Mini, Lifey, Pie and Pete. The Canaries went in their own area at one point giving Rangers a penalty. Pie stepped up and finished cleanly.

Nearing the end of the match the Rangers seemed to fall asleep, more defensively and in goal. The Canaries got two goals, both of which slipped under the Bramhall keeper. But the Rangers saw that their lead was slipping and held on. It was a struggle in the last few minutes but the ‘hall battled well and managed to hold on to their victory.

And so the Rangers finished with a second win against the Northern Canaries, four wins in a row and four wins out of five in the league.

League standings were not up to date at time of writing, so the ‘hall are either joint top (but with a lower goal difference than PIB) or still sitting second with three points either side of them. What a start to the season!

Goals: Pie(3), Mini(2), Lifey(2), Pete(2)