Chelmsford Sport
| LATEST NEWS | | |  | | | | | | | LATEST SPORT | | | | | LIMITED EDITION MAGAZINE
| | Click here for the latest
issue |
|
|
|
Clarets hold strong Ipswich side to a draw
Pre-season friendly at Chelmsford Sport & Athletics Centre
Chelmsford City 2 Ipswich Town 2
Three First Team names featured for Coca-Cola Championship side Ipswich Town as they were held to a 2-2 draw by Jeff King's new-look Clarets in City's first home friendly of what is anticipated to be an exciting season.
Town's youthful side included Billy Clarke, Matt Richards and Dean Bowditch amongst their side and they contributed to an entertaining game which saw the lead swing in both directions before a total of four goals were eventually split evenly between the teams.
The newest face in the Chelmsford camp on trial was left-back Marcel McKie, who was given a first-half run out having played for St Albans City last season. He was aiming to make an impression on the management team after already representing England at Under-20s, 19s, 18s, 17s and 16s levels during his time as a youth and professional at Tottenham Hotspur.
Initially it was the hosts who threatened as first Ricky Holmes, then Ollie Berquez broke into the Ipswich penalty area before the latter's stroked effort trickled low onto the far post and away.
Six minutes later a succession of pot-shots at Danny Gay's goal at the other end came to nothing for the visitors.
Moments before the interval Holmes worked himself a sight of goal as he picked the ball up and crafted an opening only to see his shot blocked, meaning the goal Billy Clarke registered on 43 minutes was the opener for Ipswich. He found the net from an angle around ten yards out across Gay into the bottom corner.
After the break, however, City returned the favour with a conversion of their own. An accurate cross was whipped into the far post by Lee Protheroe onto the head of Bertie Brayley a few yards from goal and he nodded high into the net for the equaliser in the 49th minute.
With 20 minutes remaining a bolt from the blue then saw King's men race in front.
Danny Webb showed persistence to contest the goalkeeper who seemingly had control of a routine long ball but the new Chelmsford target man nicked the ball away from him and side-volleyed into an empty net.
Ipswich's response was swift when substitute Jack Ainsley, brother of City midfielder Stuart, was left with a simple tap-in from ten yards after handy teamwork on the right, but sub-goalkeeper Ashley Harrison spread his body well and somehow succeeded in diverting his strike over the bar.
The perfect opportunity to make up for this miss was then presented to Bowditch after Chris Duffy had leaned on an opponent in the corner of the 18-yard box for a penalty. Yet even this failed to see the Blues register again, Bowditch dragging his spot-kick wide.
To their credit, the young Town outfit continued to press and they got their reward eight minutes from time as a cheeky chip from distance caught Harrison off his line and, as it rebounded back off the crossbar, the custodian was stranded and unable to prevent Bowditch heading-in a deserved leveller.
10:55am Thursday 17th July 2008
Print 
Email this 
Comment
What are these links for?
If you liked this article and would like to share it with others on the web who might be searching for good content we've made it easy for you to do it.
At the bottom of all articles, you'll see links to six sites. These sites - commonly called 'social bookmark' or 'social news' sites - have large communities of web users who share and rate interesting, useful and fun things on the web.
Clicking the links will automatically add the address of the story you are reading to one of these sites, letting you share it with others. Each site will ask you to register to share stories. Registration is free and once a member, you can store, recommend and search for stories that interest you.
More on Digg
More on del.icio.us
More on Furl
More on reddit
More on NowPublic/
More on Yahoo!
