STANLEYTOWN 1

CADOXTON BARRY FC 4

South Wales Senior League Division Two

THE Cadoxton Barry players left Barry in glorious sunshine but arrived in Ferndale to find dark clouds beginning to gather.

Even so, bearing in mind the recent bad weather, the pitch looked in remarkably good nick. And, indeed, it played well.

With a heavy, misty driving drizzle starting with the opening whistle, it was difficult to see all the detail, but it appeared that the opener in the 12th minute came from James Dawson. CB had started on the front foot and that's where they remained until the untimely end of the proceedings.

Next, it was Morgan who received a cross out to the left from where he made ten yards before finding the back right of the net.

In a rare counter attack Stanleytown earned a corner following a fine save from Davie and the low ball in saw a CB defender unable to get out of the way and inadvertently turn it into his own net. But that didn't calm the CB storm that was hitting Stanleytown as Dawson headed wide almost immediately. And only 30 seconds further on Morgan made it three.

Although the steady drizzle had now turned into driving rain, the pitch was still standing up quite well.

Morgan went on a run down the left to be crudely tackled. He staggered but stayed on his feet as the referee played the advantage. Then, two paces on an equally bad tackle staggered him once more and, yet again, the referee correctly waved play on with Morgan still having an advantage. However the third foul came as he ran out of space near the by line and the advantage was gone. Shortly after CB were down to ten men for a double yellow offence.

But even this disadvantage made no difference as a long ball down the left wing from Wells found Adams with the 'keeper closing down the angle. And he seemed to have done his job when Adams flicked the ball up and around him to find the net from an acute angle – an exquisite goal and one which saw the ten men take a three goal advantage into the break.

The second half whistle again signalled a change in the elements as the wind picked up to drive an icy blast of hail in the direction of the hosts' goal. And with it the ten men continued to play like twelve.

The only problem was that this second storm blowing into the Stanleytown faces was now beginning to have a detrimental effect on the playing surface. So when a high ball into the Stanleytown box pulled up dead the referee sent both sides to their respective dugouts while he undertook a closer examination of the surface. And I don't think anyone disagreed when, in the fifty-sixth minute he decided to abandon the game. So it’ll all have to be done again.

On Saturday Cadoxton Barry are home to Tonyrefail in a 2pm Bryn-Y-Don kick-off.