After a 7-1 thumping the week before Macclesfield went into this game against Bowden 7s with some bumps and bruises still visible!!!!!! Several more senior additions to the third team squad certainly made a big difference to the play. In a competitive first half both sides went close but the keeper was in inspired making several excellent saves. One of those was an excellent save from a penalty flick taken by Chris Orme. He could not however stop a well worked short corner routine that saw Neil Carmichael score from close range. Shortly after that Bowden were awarded a flick of there own, after a terrible umpiring decisio. The flick was despatched by their young centre forward. With a couple of minutes to go before half time another short corner was deflected in again by Neil Carmichael. This took Macclesfield to the break 2-1 up.

The start of the 2nd half saw Macclesfield start to enjoy the game some and some of the interplay that was going on was giving the crowd of three on the sidelines plenty to enjoy. This created several more chances and several more saves by the Bowden keeper. Orme did manage to deflect a shot passed the keeper only to be thwarted by the underside of the bar. After this some silky short pass interplay between Simon James and Simon Yates in the box saw Carmichael pounce at the top of the D and grab a third goal and complete his hatrick. Simon James then got into the act after a cross by Orme into the D was passed on to him by Simon Yates to fire into the net. Reading this match report back makes it seem very one way and that’s because it was!!! The Macclesfield defence when tested was fantastic and the fact that the Bowden were pushed so far back enabled the Macclesfield defence to attack at will. This saw some great moves down both of the flanks that were creating good chances for the forwards. In order to move forward in the league Macclesfield need to try and recreate this fantastic form in both there home and away matches. With a long, late trip to play on the Wirral next week at half term, makes me think we may struggle to recreated this good form then. I hope to be proved wrong!!!