Jordan Palmer is unlikely to forget his first goal for Workington – for it came in the most dramatic of circumstances.
Struggling to see off the 10 men of Bootle, the former Carlisle City striker had been thrown on after 74 minutes to try and break the deadlock.
He should have won it three minutes from the end but at close range shot straight at home keeper Sam Ashton.
Then in the 90th minute just inside the box on the left hand side he cut across two defenders before firing a lovely, curling right foot shot beyond Ashton into the far top corner.
Cue a pile of Workington players on the ground with a clearly delighted Palmer at the bottom of it.
Reds, without being at their best and playing in fits and starts, just about deserved the points against a well-organised Bootle side who coped well after Simon Wills was sent off in the 49th minute for a second yellow card.
Manager Danny Grainger hit the nail on the head when he said: “I thought we were about half a second behind in most of what we did. We played ok but I felt we should have moved the ball quicker.”
Get in hopefully 1st @WorkingtonAFC goal for Jordan Palmer hopefully more to come pic.twitter.com/eTN1smaMy5
— RISC (@RISC2015) September 17, 2022
Grainger also revealed his daughter had given him a four-leaf clover to take with him to the match – and he had been frantically looking for it in his pocket just before Palmer scored.
In fact the whole game could have been changed if Ruben Jerome had given Reds the lead in the first minute. Put through by a fine ball by Lewis Reilly he had Ashton running out to him and although he managed to squeeze his shot past the keeper it was also outside the goal.
The other chance of the first-half fell to Sam Smith after Scott Allison had drilled one into the box but it was rather a centre-half’s shot which followed as he fired well wide.
On other occasions some solid defending, particularly close-range blocks in the box, prevented Reds from testing Ashton.
Bootle had one or two good little spells when Workington had to be on their guard at the back. Wills and Jack McGowan both put shots into the side netting while Declan McLoughlin hit one straight at Jim Atkinson.
Wills saw red after a foul on Allison earned him a second yellow at the start of the second half.
It was particularly at this point that Reds should have increased the tempo but didn’t really force the pace enough.
Jay Roberts and Connor Millington both landed crosses on the roof of Atkinson’s net and there were a couple of solid blocks from both of Dan Wordsworth and Smith.
They say what comes round, goes round and just when it looked like a 0-0 draw young Palmer snatched the win for Grainger’s side.
They had lost to late goals against Mossley and South Shields, so deserved a change of luck in that respect.
Allison, in his deeper role, was outstanding for the Reds with the usual suspects Smith and Wordsworth as reliable as ever at the back.
There’s time now for knocks and injuries to improve with no more mid-week matches and Reds will be back in action on Saturday in the re-arranged home game with Skelmersdale.
