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Blackpool have been scoring for fun during their pre-season friendlies with new striker Ian Swaine, fresh for his transfer from City of Manchester’s 1st team, scoring several and creating fesh competition with Blackpool scoring legend Dave Morgan. However a league match is always that bit harder so the team were urged not to be complacent during the warm up.
Within just 29 seconds of the start, the South Cheshire goalie made a hash of a routine clearance by giving it straight to Swaine, who made no mistake and put Blackpool 1-0 ahead. Unbelievable start!
Blackpool piled on the pressure early in the half, and were rewarded when Swaine scored his second at a short corner. Despite Blackpool having much of the possession they were unable to go further ahead in the first half, with spurned chances from both Swaine and Morgan.
With memories of last year’s fightback by South Cheshire from 3-0 down to 5-3 on the opening day, Blackpool were determined to score more goals and keep the pressure up.
Blackpool were awarded a sucession of short corners from the constant attacking round the D. Ian Swaine grabbed his hat-trick with a great strike from one of these.
South Cheshire did manage a few attacks but Blackpool’s defence were far too solid and hardly let a shot on goal all match, with Joe Boniface in particular in great form. In fact South Cheshire wasted the few short corner chances they got by mis-hitting the strike in.
Dave Morgan was obviously inspired or annoyed by his striker partner’s hat-trick, that he was overjoyed to score his first goal from another short corner routine woth James Slater crossing the ball to him.
He quickly followed up with a second at another short corner, this time supplied by Swaine. At 5-0 up, South Cheshire’s heads dropped, but Blackpool were having too much fun and continued attacking.
Morgan grabbed his own hat-trick after a fantastic ball was unleashed down the left wing into the D by left back Craig Brookes, collected by Slater who pulled it back for Morgan to unleash his shot.
Blackpool made it a perfect 7-0 scoreline when Steve Whitley was able to tap in a perfectly crossed ball from Rob Abbott who’d launched it from the right wing.
Almost the perfect start to the season, marred only when we found out that Lymm had scored 13 so our top of the table position was not to be! The opposition awarded Man of the Match to Ian Swaine, understandably.