Warrington Town fight back to claim point at Bamber Bridge

Warrington Town fought back from two goals down to earn a 2-2 draw away at in-form Bamber Bridge.

Matt Grivosti and Ben Hough scored barely seconds before and after half-time to turn things around for the Yellows, who dominated the second half and could have pinched a winner.

The hosts had led through Mark Yeates and Ewan Bange and were good value for that lead until Grivosti’s header gave the visitors hope.

After a disappointing defeat at home to Matlock on Saturday, it was another tough assignment for the Yellows made worse by the additions to their growing injury list of Jack Mackreth, Josh Amis and Luke Duffy.

And the afternoon got off to the worst possible start when Yeates played a nice one-two on the edge of the box with Bange and then slid the ball past Dan Atherton to give the hosts the lead inside three minutes.

On a carpet of a pitch at the Sir Tom Finney Stadium, Brig played nice football throughout the first half with Yeates pulling the strings and Bange looking a threat through the middle.

The Yellows’ first chance fell to Mark Roberts, his header comfortably saved by Danny Roccia after Matt Regan had flicked on Mitch Duggan’s throw.

Bamber Bridge doubled their lead on 28 minutes, when the ball broke loose for Bange in the box and he side footed past Atherton.

Yeates was proving hard to pick up and his cross was headed wide by Sheldon Green as Brig threatened to cut loose.

But from nothing on the stroke of half time, the Yellows got themselves a lifeline.

Brig tried to play the offside trap off a free-kick on half way, and instead Atherton’s perfectly weighted free-kick found the run of Grivosti who headed beyond Roccia who was in no man’s land on the edge of the box.

From relative control, Brig undid all their hard work from the first half within 20 seconds of the restart.

Straight from the kick-off, Warrington showed intent and when the ball broke to Hough, he struck goalwards on the half volley and it spun off the hand of Roccia and in to the net when the ‘keeper perhaps should have done better.

That triggered an onslaught of pressure from the Yellows in a remarkable turnaround of proceedings.

The excellent Regan had three chances – hitting the post with a right foot shot, forcing Roccia to push over a shot from a James Baillie cross and then firing over from the centre after Hough had been left free in the box.

Grivosti came close to a second when he screwed a shot wide and then Dom Reid’s deflected shot dropped agonisingly wide of the post.

Duggan arrived late to a deep cross by Baillie which he hooked just over the bar as the Yellows dominance continued.

The game ended under a cloud after a red card was shown to Brig captain Macauley Wilson, after a melee involving the majority of the players on the pitch.

It was caused by the referee stopping the game and then getting in the way of the drop ball restart, which then saw Yeates cynically foul Reid – when Duggan confronted Yeates, it all kicked off.

Even with a man advantage, there wasn’t enough time to find a winner for the Yellows and they had to do with a point.

They are in FA Cup action at the weekend with a trip to Kendal Town.

Bamber Bridge: Roccia, Thomson, White, Spooner, Wilson, Forbes, Green (Dudley), Churchman, Bange, Yeates, Sinclair. Unused sub: Flynn.

Warrington Town: Atherton, Baillie, Clarke, Duggan, Roberts, Regan, Miller (Shepherd), Hough, Reid, Dixon, Grivosti. Unused subs: Amis, Harris, Hall, Duffy.