Flashback – 5 years ago: Flint fortress becomes the garden of Eden

Flint Town United 1 (Smyth 40)
Buckley Town 2 (Eden 53 & 89)
Cymru Alliance League – March 23, 2016

Adam Eden struck at the double as Buckley gained revenge on Flint for their defeat in the reverse fixture by taking the honours at Cae-y-Castell on this date five years ago

The Silkmen were left to rue a string of missed chances and profligacy in front of goal, allowing their opponents to nick all three points.

The visitors carved open the Flint defence on seven minutes, when Aaron Williams played a defence-splitting pass from halfway which found Mark Ellis, whose weak shot from the edge of the box was easily collected by Ross Dalton.

Eden found himself through on goal on 16 minutes, but Dalton was alert and produced a great stop.

The game was an end-to-end affair at this stage, with the next good chance falling to Flint on 20 minutes.

Craig Jones delivered a great ball into the danger area with plenty of pace and Joe Palmer connected, heading over from 12 yards out.

As the half wore on, Flint started to gain the ascendancy, and on the half-hour mark, a Stewart Carroll corner was headed into the side-netting at the back post by Johnny Hill.

The opening goal arrived on 40 minutes. The energetic Abe Dobson chased down a loose ball near the corner and managed to retrieve it, laying it into the path of Jack Abraham, who with his first touch rounded his marker and squared across the face of goal for Kyle Smyth to tap in from close range.

Flint had a great opportunity to go into the break 2-0 up, when a good free kick delivery from Dobson found Carroll, who hit the post from five yards out.

Half-time: Flint 1 Buckley 0

Two minutes into the second half and Carroll was again denied by the woodwork, albeit from much further out this time.

Craig Jones produced another good delivery into the box to find Palmer, who laid the ball back to Carroll on the edge of the area.

The midfielder hit a belter of a shot that struck the angle of post and bar.

Flint were rocked back on their heels on 53 minutes when Eden broke out of midfield and hit a tremendous 40-yarder that whistled into the net giving Dalton no chance.

With quarter of an hour left, Flint skipper Jones found Smyth, whose shot on the turn was lacking in accuracy. Two minutes later, Joe Culshaw retrieved a seemingly harmless ball that had been played across the box, and fired across the face of the Buckley goal.

Into the last 10 minutes, and a John Davies flick on from a corner found Abraham on the back post, but just as he was about to get his shot away, he slipped, and the chance was gone.

The sucker punch arrived in the 89th minute, when the ball was given away cheaply to danger man Eden. He produced a lung-busting 40 yard run to score easily, as the defence could not mount a serious challenge to stop him.

Flint Town United: Ross Dalton, Jack Culshaw, Jay Beck, Craig Jones (c), John Davies, Johnny Hill, Jack Abraham, Abe Dobson, Joe Palmer, Stewart Carroll (P Djan 73), Kyle Smyth.

Buckley Town: B Jones, J Jones (D Reece 81), M Roberts, C Roberts, N Williams, T Lloyd (J Gannon 67), J Leamy, L Reynolds, M Ellis (K Reid 90), A Eden, A Williams.

Match report: Will Price – with many thanks