Bad Day at the Office as Nine Man Ollerton Conceded Nine!

Where do you start with the post-mortem of a game in which a side loses 9-0, conceding eight in the second half, whilst also having two players and their manager sent off in the process?
A good place to start would be to say that for the first half of the game, Ollerton Town were well in it, despite having goalkeeper Scott Gretton sent off.
Both sides were trying to work each other out in the opening stages before Gretton saw red. He was shown a straight red on eighteen minutes for handling the ball outside his area despite appearing to control the ball with his chest.
Ollerton Manager Dave Winter felt strongly aggrieved but was himself sent off shortly afterwards for one too many protests to the referee and linesman.
With Gretton off, Ollerton brought on 18 year old Matt Olla for his first ever game in men’s football and it turned out to be somewhat of a baptism of fire despite his best efforts.
Pontefract took the lead on half an hour, hooking the ball into the net from a corner. After that though, the home side appeared to grow complacent and Ollerton had the better of the play before half time and could’ve easily gone into the break level.
Ollerton were still in the game going into the second period but they saw their hopes dashed as Pontefract doubled their lead with a long range strike, three minutes into the second half.
After that, the floodgates opened and Pontefract charged forward, seeming to score with every attack, scoring an unbelievable eight goals to run out 9-0 winners. The more goals went in, the more Ollerton's spirit dwindled and that, added to the fact they were having to deal with being a man down meant Pontefract were utterly dominant.
To be fair, Ollerton kept plugging away and Lewis Bingham close to scoring an unbelievable goal, dribbling past four before just firing wide from inside the area.
Pontefract had a chance to make it ten, as they were awarded their second penalty of the game. It came after Tom Cooke was sent off in very harsh circumstances. A shot from only a few yards out was smashed towards Cooke, who didn’t move his arms away from his body, but was still shown a straight red for handball. The Pontefract attacker stepped up and skewed his shot off target meaning the final score stayed at nine.

Ollerton are a far better team than what happened on Saturday and have proved it so far this season, it was only the previous week that they secured a fantastic point against a strong Grimsby Borough side. Everything that could have gone wrong on Saturday did and it’s now vital that the Ollerton players forget about it and move on. It’s up to them to prove that Saturday was an anomaly, starting with an important game against Brigg Town this week.