Deeside again managed to contrive a close scoreline from a game they dominated and should have won by 4 or 5 clear goals. Preston defended resolutely but Deeside squandered a hatful of chances.

As is now the norm – Deeside conceded first. This week the deadlock lasted until the 5th minute, a nicely weighted ball into the circle was latched upon by a Preston forward who mis hit a backhand towards the goal. The pink salmon, blinded by the bright autumnal sunshine, was unable to correctly orientate himself and the ball slipped into the goal. 0-1. Undaunted, the home side rallied and struck back 4 minutes later - Pratt linking well with Warwick Ryan-Beswick and McNally who in turn found Barber on the back post to tap home. 1-1. Deeside began to take control of the game – the ever youthful Ghanzanfar producing 2 mazy runs in quick succession. The best of which saw him blaze over the bar with the visiting keeper rooted to the spot. All square at the quarter time whistle.

Deeside went ahead through Joe Wright within a minute of the restart. McNally weaved into the D and his cross-shot was expertly deflected past the surprised keeper by the diving Wright. 2-1. Wright almost repeated the feat 2 minutes later but was unable to direct the ball on target. A couple of shouts for penalty corners were waved away as the half drew to a close.

Chances were now coming a plenty. Fearnall missing an open goal tap in, Ali G coming close again and a number of half hearted shots struck the visiting GK. When Deeside were eventually awarded penalty corners, the shots were charged down by the Preston number 1 runner. Another goal for Wright was ruled out after the umpires realised the ball had been bundled into the Preston goal via his wooden leg.

As the game went into the final period – Preston tempers were flaring. A green card was converted to a yellow when the umpire was advised that his recent decision was a load of “b******”. The quote of the game however, came a few minutes later when the visiting no 5 was advised by a teammate to “shut the **** up you donkey”!

Barber grabbed his second with 10 minutes to go rounding off a fast counter attack. Preston could easily have crumbled now but to their credit they kept plugging away and were rewarded with a penalty corner goal with 6 minutes left. A deft deflection lobbing over the non-leaping salmon. There was still time for an unlikely comeback, but Preston didn’t get a further sniff of goal and Deeside created (and missed) another 5 or 6 chances in the closing minutes. Barber was shown a green card just before time – the reason was uncertain but may have been something to do with his goals to chances ratio?!

The scoreline did not reflect Deeside’s dominance but it did manage to keep the game interesting. Jimmi Hill was asking for a refund of his match fee as he didn’t touch the ball in the entire game!! Perhaps some finishing practice will be on the cards for this week’s training sessions?

Next week sees a visit to Timperley for an evening start under floodlights.