Comeback kings Clipstone shock Hall Road with five-goal fightback

From the first whistle both teams went at it hammer and tongue.

Both sets of players were also struggling to keep on their feet on a pitch that looked barely playable before kick-off, and the pitch cut up worse the longer time went on.

On seven minutes Clipstone found themselves behind, and somewhat against the run of play.

Hall Road managed to catch them on the break, hitting the right byline, and a deflected cross looped up and found the head of Mortimer to put Rangers in front.

It wasn’t too long before Clipstone fell further behind as their top scorer, Adams, picked up the ball 25 yards from goal and his speculative shot beat keeper Ed Eley all ends up in the far top corner.

Even though they were 2-0 down Clipstone were playing some nice stuff, Jason Edwards and Rob Paling in the middle of the park doing their best to produce a telling pass for Snowden and Watson up front.

But at times Clipstone could have been accused of the old Arsenal way of playing by trying to walk the ball into the net.

Edwards must have beaten three defenders before unleashing a shot, which was blocked by the last defender in a ever-packed penalty area.

He wasn’t the only one, Haslam over-running the ball on a couple of occasions.

Haslam was upended wide on the left midway through the first half. The free kick was taken by Rob Austen, who found the head of Kieran Watson, and his bullet header flew inches over the crossbar.

If Clipstone were to get back into this game they needed to come out for the second half with gusto and a little more guile.

Instead they fell further behind on 47 minutes with Rangers hitting them on the counter attack, Ben Silburn tapping home from two yards out.

Clipstone boss Brett Marshall decided it was time to change things around with a double substitution as Steve Carty and Liam Pride replacing Rob Paling and Rob Camm respectively.

It didn’t take Pride long to get into the game as, a few minutes after coming on, he sent Snowden into the right of the penalty area and he managed to spin and fire at goal, the home keeper making a fine save. This was a sign of things to come.

On 57 minutes it was Pride yet again who hit the goal line and fired in a hard low cross with Watson and Haslam both going for the ball, Haslam winning this race to get Clipstone into the game at 3-1.

If you looked away for the next 30 seconds or so you would have missed the Cobras’ second goal, Jason Edwards scoring from 12 yards out.

Two minutes later Clipstone were level, Haslam providing the cross for Watson to finish.

The home side were visibly shellshocked how quickly Clipstone had managed to get back into the game.

On 75 minutes Haslam picked up the ball just inside the Rangers’ half, played a one-two with Edwards, and crossed for Watson to put Clipstone in front for the first time in this contest, and claim his second of the game.

Carl Snowden had run his legs off for the cause all afternoon and was replaced by Adam Wisdom

Just when everyone thought it may all be over on 90 minutes, Pride put a through ball for Haslam who beat the home keeper to the ball and get his second of the game into an empty net.

Clipstone: E. Eley, G. Armstrong, B. Shaw, R. Austen, J. Shaw, R. Camm (S. Carty), R. Paling (L. Pride), J. Edwards, C. Snowden (A. Wisdom), K. Watson, C. Haslam. Subs not used: J. Allan.