BARTLE RETURNS TO EX-CLUB AS FALCON WIN THE 3 POINTS
Halifax Rangers 2 (Smith pen, Bowe)
Falcon Pine 6 (Crossley,Holroyd 2,Probets,Baggley,
OG)
Bob Bartle returned to his former club who he served for around 8 years, with his re-vamped
Falcon Pine side and earned a flattering scoreline of 2-6.
Pine opened the scoring with a early header by rookie striker Adam Probets following a cross
from Matt Holroyd and the visitors then went about a sustained period of posession.
But against the run of play, Rangers were awarded a penalty which to onlookers seemed to be
way out of the box and indeed not a foul at all by 18 year old Sam Rowe.
Veteran centre half Daz Smith stepped up and smashed the ball home for the equaliser.
After around 15 minutes of evenly contested scrappy play, Falcon began to settle down again
and as a result restored their lead with a goal from Matt Holroyd who hit a hopefull lob which keeper Mick Field mishandled
into the net.
Shortly before half time Falcon Pine FC went 3-1 up as Wayne Crossley scored from a low
free kick past the wall and into the bottom corner.
After the break it was all one way as Matt Holroyd smashed in a superb goal from outside the
box and into the top corner which the keeper had no chance of saving.
Then Sam Rowe sent a defence splitting ball through and good work by Probets and Crossley forced
Pete Bowe into a shocking long range own goal to make it 5-1 to Falcon.
Rangers never gave up and were rewarded for their efforts when Pete Bowe made up for his earlier
mishap by scoring from the angle past Dean Crossley who will not have been happy to have conceded at his near post.
Falcons three substitutes were all introduced and one of them, Dave Baggley - an ex-York City
player who had played over 30 games for them before his professional career was cut short by injury- hammered home a low drive
out of nothing to cap a fine individual display in his short 25 minutes of play.
On this showing it would seem that Rangers need to perhaps go back to having just one side rather
than running two as both teams are bottom of division 1 and 2, whilst Pine who themselves ran two teams and eventually lead
to them being relegated from the top flight. But having dispensed with the 2nd team they have now assembled a quality team
that will be promotion candidates this season.
With all the youngsters and others reaching their peak years the future looks bright for Pine.......hopefully
it will for Rangers as they approach their 25th season in the Halifax Sunday League.
