Fever 2 Bury 5

Fever took to the pitch rather like Norwich, Crystal Palace & West Bromwich Albion in that they were looking for their first win of the season. With a new player/manager in place and debutant Paul Lucas wearing striking yellow boots, there was an air of confidence amongst the ranks. This enthusiasm was backed up by a positive start to the game with Fever matching their opponents in all departments. In the fifteenth minute they made the breakthrough with Mark Howland beating three players and skillfully toepoking the ball from 35 yards past the despairing Bury keeper.

The early promise however, turned out to be shortlived as Bury began to exert their influence on the game and it wasn’t long before Danny in the Fever goal was forced to pull off a number of fine saves. On the half-hour mark after a goalmouth scramble the ball fell to ‘Bez’ (Bury’s central midfielder & best player), he struck a sweet drive from the edge of the box into the corner of the Fever net to equalise. There followed considerable discussion about closing down the loose ball amongst the Fever defenders. Alas lessons were not learnt and just prior to half-time, Bury scored again with a carbon copy goal leading to more fervent discussion about closing down the loose ball with particularly stong input from Gary Silver (shouting from the halfway line).

The first twenty minutes of the second half was perhaps the most ineffective spell of the past two seasons with passes misplaced, tackles missed and two more goals from Bury. Firstly their man-mountain centre forward launched himself at a corner to head home. Worse was to follow as Martin Brodetsky and the Fever keeper both went for the same ball resulting in an easy tap in for the visitors.

Credit to the home side – they rallied and forced a number of corners from which a couple of reasonable headed efforts transpired. With time running out hopes were lifted when Silver scored after excellent build-up work to make the score 4-2. Shortly afterwards Matthews had a 25 yard effort well saved and Fever were left thinking what might have been.

The game was put beyond doubt with five minutes to go as Bury’s No.2 walked through the Fever defence to score. His over-exuberant celebrations caused referee Butler to book him and warn him about his future conduct.

Squad –

Danny, Dammers, Brodetsky, Wehmeier, Carter, Butler, Kelly, Crowder, Howland, Gilbert, Lucas, Matthews, Silver

Home Attendance – 0

Away Attendance – 4