Pickering Town 1-2 Tadcaster Albion
Marcel Chigumira celebrates scoring the winner for Tadcaster Albion. Picture: Matthew Appleby
Second half goals from Fatlum Ibrahimi and Marcel Chigumira saw Tadcaster Albion come from behind to see off Paul Marshall’s Pickering Town.
Michael Morton came into the game against his former counter-part without Aaron Hardy, Pete Davidson, Joel Dixon, Conor Sellars and Michael Ingham.
It wasn’t just a case of familiar faces on the touchline though, there were plenty of players in the Pikes’ squad that are very well known by Michael and Simon Collins.
Fraser Hansen, Joe Dunnett, Owen Marshall and Charlie Birley are all part of TAFC’s U21 team as well as the i2i Academy, which is run by the new Taddy bosses.
The first twenty five minutes saw no clear cut openings arise with Town’s Lewis Taylor having the only shot at goal which flew harmlessly over.
However it was in fact the home side who did break the deadlock three minutes later when Eddy Birch instinctively volleyed into the bottom corner from the edge of the box.
The Brewers were seeing lots of the ball in the opposition half but were struggling to break down Pickering or find a way through.
Josh Greening persisted on dropping deep to try and get his side flowing more fluently in the final third but forwards Tom Corner and Danny Frost were clearly frustrated with the service or the lack of.
Morton and Collins insisted that in the second half Albion continued to move the ball quicker across all areas of the park and this they did.
Danny Frost was brought down for a penalty ten minutes in but Corner was unable to convert after blasting wildly over the bar.
The Brewers were almost hit with a sucker-punch as Hansen almost caught Tom Young off his line from 35 yards but the stand-in keeper just managed to tip onto the crossbar.
Taddy were improving as the friendly went on though and did get a deserved equaliser in the 67th minute.
Josh Greening’s gorgeous outside of the foot flick ran kindly for substitute Ibrahimi who caressed precisely off the post and into the bottom corner.
As the Pikes began to tire, Taddy were only getting stronger as the likes of Chigumira, Jake Rose and co brought a new dimension and freshness off the bench.
Another substitute Jason Stokes saw two half decent chances come and go before the Brewers did net the elusive third goal three minutes from time.
Four of the substitutes were all involved in the move.
Jake Ellam showed great vision to pick out Piteu Crouz, he then fed Stokes who chipped in for Marcel Chigumira to deftly glance into the back of the net.