Mossley 7 - 0 Marsden

There's nothing like a fact filled account of a game and sadly this is nothing like one.

You'll have to forgive me for the lack of stated truths in this match report because I completely lost track of who scored and who did what. Still, best to get it out of the system before the season starts or else some upcoming reviews are going to resemble jigsaw puzzles with important pieces missing.

Lee Connor opens the scoring for the evening.

I know for definite that the first was a penalty from the boot of Lee Connor with the game barely minutes old but this is where it starts to get a bit murky. The second was netted by David Wallace (apologies if it wasn't) but I'm absolutely certain that Lee Blackshaw got the third by knocking in a rebound off the bar with the side of his head. It's possible that he got the fourth as well but I wouldn't swear on it in court!

This might be the second goal...

...But this is definitely the third from Lee Blackshaw.

The fourth hits the back of the net but whodunit?

Thankfully my memory is slightly better when it comes to recalling the following forty five minutes. Gareth Hamlet rolled the ball into an empty net for the fifth after beating the keeper in a chase for a loose pass and scored the seventh a moment before the referee brought the game to a conclusion. I've no idea who got the sixth goal and the filling in the Hamlet sandwich (other than that he was wearing the number four shirt and had a good game) but it was a pretty fearsome shot from close range after good work down the left.

David Wallace is denied his second of the game. Or possibly his first. This is getting confusing isn't it?

Gareth Hamlet rolls in the fifth of the night...

...And the seventh.

It's easy to dismiss Marsden as a creditable opposition (and I'm sure that given more time to arrange these games a sterner test would have been the preferred option to take us into the new season) but they have picked up some impressive results over the last few weeks.

But you can learn just as many important things in games like this one as you can in matches against teams from the Conference North or a Second Division youth side; the main one being how the players apply themselves and on that count Mossley passed with flying colours. The game was over as a contest very early on but the home side never took their foot off the pedal and continued to put the Yorkshire side to the sword. No showboating, just a desire to score as many goals as possible which, personally speaking, is how it should be.

To Garforth now and the serious stuff. And I must remember to take a pen and paper.