Match Report: Halifax Town 2-2 Carlisle United

By Cuthbert
March 30 2002

Good Friday? Huh. You know where you can stick your good Friday. We deserved the 3 points, but a negative tactic change with twenty minutes to go turned 3 points into a no use 1 point.

With 2 minutes to go, I said to our Rupe that there was life in the old dog yet (and I didn't mean his wife), but the dog was finally put to sleep with the final kick of the game.

The first half was a poor spectacle with neither team getting a grip on the match, but the Shaymen took the lead. We were having a spell of pressure and with some good work down the right, the ball was knocked into the middle for Woodward to hit the ball past the keeper.

The game went a bit dead then, until Carlisle made a counter attack. Foran was charging towards the Halifax goal and towards Mitchell. Instead of going to meet him, Mitchell (who had another excellent game) kept backing off and off and allowed him to come into the box and get the cross for Stevens to score the equaliser.

The second half was a different game. The town attacked Carlisle and put pressure on them. We began to get a grip of the match. Down the left Jules was making some good runs, and the front three were causing all sorts of problems. After some good work out wide by Fitz, he sweeped a excellent cross in for Redfearn to head home while unmarked. 2-1 and fully deserved.

Then with about 20mins to go, the change came that was to spoil everything. We changed from a solid 4-3-3 to the dreaded 5-3-2. We lost our shape and went far too defensive. This gave Carlisle the opportunity to come at us and that is exactly what they did.

5 minutes before the 90 was up we rode out luck. A couple of times from the Scircoat it seemed that a own goal was going to go in. The Cumbrians even hit the crossbar and all town fans must have felt that the luck was going our way tonight.

The board went up. 2 extra minutes. Thank god it wasn't 4 or 5. In the end up more than 2 minutes was played, which gave enough time for Carlisle to get a undeserved equaliser. A dreaded corner, which we haven't been able to defend all season was poor, it was partially cleared but fired straight back in. The ball found its way through to Foran who slotted past Richardson to send the Carlisle support barmy. 

We are just as good as down now. It might be a religious weekend but we need more than a miracle now to retain our league place.

The two things that have annoyed me tonight were the change of tactics when we were coasting 2-1. We were in charge of the match, Carlisle were not posing any problems so why change it. Managers always say the best form of defence is attack so why didn't we continue as we were tonight.

The second thing was the referee. As usual he was poor, but we had Redfearn shown a yellow card for pulling a players shirt. Ok, fair enough. But how can a player who stamps on a opponent be given the same punishment? How long has deliberately trying to injure an opponent only being a yellow card offence?

Ah well, an emotional night, we were so close to getting the result we wanted, but in the end our luck ran out. Good Friday for Halifax Town fans is no longer such a thing.