Meadow treated to seven-goal thriller

Lowestoft Town Club Notes by Terry Lynes

LAST Saturday's eagerly awaited clash between promotion rivals Lowestoft Town and East Thurrock United lived up to all expectations with the sides serving up a seven goal thriller.

In an all action 90 minutes there was never more than a single goal separating the teams. The result hinged on an inspired change made by the Blues management. With just under an hour played the Blues sent on midfielders Scott Mitchell and Jamie Forshaw to replace Gary McGee and Craig Bussens and pushed Joe Francis into a more central striking role. Within a couple of minutes Francis has scored the first of his 20 minute hat trick. Craig Bussens had earlier opened the scoring.

The torrential rain this week saw the attempts to stage the Championship Manager Cup tie away to Croydon Athletic scuppered both on Monday and Wednesday as were the Reserves Ridgeons League fixture on Tuesday against Gt Yarmouth Town Reserves and Wednesday's Youth fixture between the same clubs. The Reserves fixture last Saturday away to Debenham LC Reserves was also postponed - a frozen pitch the problem that time.

The Blues are now in a run of fixtures against their main promotion rivals. Tomorrow they entertain Enfield Town at the Meadow and then on Tuesday travel to Concord Rangers. In a very hectic week they then travel to Division One South promotion hopefuls Croydon Athletic in the Championship Manager Cup quarter final.

Tomorrow the Reserves will be hoping that the weather which has seen them play just three games in the last three months will relent to allow their Chell Trophy tie away to Braintree Town Reserves to go ahead. They then face a Tuesday evening league clash against Diss Town Reserves on Tuesday.

The Youth team have seen their last three fixtures all postponed and will be looking to return to action on Wednesday when Cromer Town Youth visit the Meadow.

Neither the Under 15s nor Under 17s games survived the weather last weekend.