Cup final to bring season to an end for the under-23s
Our under-23s go into the final of the Lancashire Senior Cup tonight against local rivals Blackburn Rovers to end a season that promised much but now leaves us with this one game to win a trophy.
We reached the quarter-finals of the Premier League Cup, knocking out Category 1 clubs Liverpool, West Brom and Leicester on the way before losing to Leeds while in the league the second half of the season proved disappointing with six defeats from eleven games in 2019 which saw us drop from joint first at Christmas to a final position of fourth behind Leeds, Birmingham and Crewe with Leeds beating Birmingham on penalties yesterday in the play-off final.
Tonight, however, is our final. Probably no one got too excited back in September when we beat Barrow 4-0 in the competition. That was followed by a narrow 1-0 quarter-final win against Fleetwood before the crazy semi-final which saw us go through to tonight’s final with a 6-4 victory against Rochdale.
All of those games were played at Gawthorpe but tonight we travel to the Lancashire FA County Ground at Leyland to face a Blackburn team who have themselves had an outstanding season. They’ve finished in fifth place in Premier League 2 Division 1 behind just Everton, Arsenal, Brighton and Liverpool.
Coach Steve Stone has asked his players to give it one last push to try and win what is a very impressive looking trophy and, if they do, said: “It’s something that will live forever in the memories of their youth career. Hopefully, they’ll go on to do better things than this, but it will live in their memory for what you can try and achieve.”
He added: “To win any trophy, at any level, is important. It’s about a winning mentality and that’s what we’re driving here. This is an opportunity for them all to put a marker down, to stand out. I was disappointed in some of the other competitions where we went out. In the league we went out and didn’t get to where we should have, and this is where we go, ‘right, last game of the season, give your all’. Forget about the score sometimes, just give your all and see where you get and that’s what we’ll be looking at.”
Kick off tonight at the County Ground is 7 p.m. It’s an all ticket match with sales now having ended for Burnley supporters. There is no admission on the night without a ticket.
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