Football: Colwyn Bay FC sign young striker

Jan 1 2009 By Tim Channon

COLWYN BAY have added to their attacking options for the New Year’s Day home game against Trafford (3pm) by signing 18- year-old striker Billy Webb from Warrington.

A former member of Chester City’s youth team, he has made 26 appearances for Warrington and has been scoring regularly for the Cheshire FA youth representative side. Manager Neil Young sees him as a player the club can develop with the future in mind.

He fills a place in the squad left by Andy Moran who has completed his second loan spell at the club and returned to Fleetwood Town.

The manager has also put in seven days for four other players as he looks to further bolster his squad – particularly after losing midfielder Danny Hughes who suffered a double fracture of his right leg in the 1-0 Boxing Day defeat at Woodley Sports.

Goalkeeper Chris Sanna is also unavailable for the New Year’s Day game at home to Trafford, with Mark Cartwright deputising.

That is the first of two games in three days which the manager sees as very important.

"How we do in these two games could well decide if we still have a realistic hope of the play-offs or not – and that will influence the signings we try to make in January," said the manager.

But he has already started recruiting young players like Webb, Lee Davey and Lee Hammond, who he feels can develop so that whatever happens the Bay can go into the summer with the nucleus of next season’s squad already bedded in.

Today’s opponents Trafford are just behind Colwyn Bay on goal difference, having played one game more, but boast the league’s top scorer in Scott Barlow (28 goals).

The Manchester side have already put nine goals past the Bay in league and cup meetings this season and have just bounced back from three successive league defeats with a 4-1 win at Bamber Bridge in the Presidents Cup last week and a 5-2 win over Salford in the league on Boxing Day.

Colwyn Bay saw their own good run ended with the disappointing defeat at Woodley Sports in a game they dominated for long spells but struggled to make an impact in the final third of the field.

The corner count of 9-3 to Colwyn Bay gives a good indication of the run of play, but apart from beating away shots from Lee Davey and Mick McGraa, home keeper Ben Connett was not tested nearly enough.

Mick McGraa missed the target with the Bay’s two best chances, and too many other efforts went high or wide, while Woodley won the game with their only shot on target.

They broke quickly from a Colwyn Bay corner on 28 minutes and Gavin Salmon ran onto a long diagonal ball over the top of Bay’s retreating defence to stab past Sanna.

These are games the Bay need to be winning and defeat was a big setback to hopes of making the play-offs.

"After giving away a soft goal we had chances to win it but didn’t play well enough in the final third," admitted the manager.

"The defeat ended a decent little run and now we’ve got to pick ourselves up and try and go on another one.

"But with the inexperience that we have in attack at the moment we are going to get inconsistency and we have to live with that for the time being."

For first report of Colwyn Bay’s game against Trafford see Tim Channon’s blog from Thursday evening.