Colwyn Bay FC vs. Bangor City
Colwyn Bay FC welcome back several old faces to Llanelian road in their first pre-season of the 2010/11 season. Eddie Jebb, Craig Garside and for those with a slightly longer memory, Chris Smith and Paul Smith, and that was just in Bangor City’s line-up!

Colwyn Bay Manager Dave Challinor brought several old faces of his own to the match, with Mike McGraa, Lee Hammond and Steve Aspinall turning out for Colwyn Bay FC.

A bright start from Colwyn Bay nearly caught Bangor out after only three minutes as Steve Aspinall delivered a defence splitting ball. Bartlett drove in a low drive, but was unlucky to see it come back off the left upright.

The Bay faithful only had one more minute to wait to see the Bay’s first goal under the new regime of Dave Challinor.  A delightful cross field ball picked out Alan Bull who had time to look and pick his spot as he bent the ball around the keeper and into the back of the net.

It was fifteen minutes before Bangor got their first real attempt on target as Chris Jones was allowed to turn in the box and did well to fire in his snapshot. Danny Grannon was equal to it as he managed to get his body in the way and deflect the ball out for the corner.

Bangor pulled themselves level on twenty minutes with a dangerous free kick, delivered by Eddie Jebb. Mike Johnson timed his jump to perfection as he headed the ball home.
Half Time 1-1

It was a wholesale change of personnel by Dave Challinor at half time as changed the whole starting line-up to make sure he had a chance to have a good look at every player available.

Once again it was Colwyn Bay who started the brighter and after just two minutes, the Bangor defence found Tom McGill’s shot too hot to handle and struggled to clear it. Mike Burke appeared between the two centre backs to toe poke the ball home from close range.

With the emphasis on fitness and keeping player’s injury free, it was no surprise that the game was played to the best of order and all players maybe not committing to challenges that they would during the season proper, but both managers will have been pleased with several performances from their squads on show today.
Full Time 2-1

Dave Challinor said” I’m not too bothered about results at the moment, it is more important that everyone gets 45 minutes match time under their belt.  There is a lot of new faces on show as well as some players who have been at the Bay before, but it’s a clean slate for everyone as far as I’m concerned and everyone will have every opportunity to earn their place in my final squad.”

With players already signed up for next season away on holiday until the end of July, Dave has highlighted the friendly against TNS (31st July) before he will start to look to reduce the numbers of his current squad.

When asked about his thoughts about his first game in charge as Colwyn Bay FC manager, Dave joked” It’s a lot easier from the side, but Colin (Woodthorpe) is back for the next game and I will be expecting to be taking part in the match against Chester (10th July) to improve my own match fitness”