A WONDERFUL goal crafted by a man named Matthews earned Blackpool a point against fellow strugglers Colchester United, writes Chris Dixon.

On-loan striker Rob Matthews carved down the left wing on 21 minutes, storming into the U's penalty area to tee-up Junior Bent for the best goal of the season so far at Bloomfield Road.

Matthews was one of three forward players fielded by caretaker manager Mike Davies in an ambitious 4-3-3 formation - a far cry from games in the past where suspension and injuries left previous manager Nigel Worthington fielding a single striker at times.

On two minutes, Bent grabbed a poor clearance from Simon Brown in the Colchester goal and raced into the area, only to be blocked out by an excellent challenge from Titus Bramble. Just eight minutes later and the little man sent a rocket of a shot wide to the left of goal.

The best move of the match belonged to the Seasiders in the 35th minute and deserved to double the Tangerines' lead.

David Bardsley, playing at right-back, took his time to curl a long ball to John Murphy, who headed-on for Matthews' to shoot just over the bar. Exciting stuff. But if the opening 45 minutes belonged to the Seasiders, Colchester were never going to make life easy for the home side in the second half.

An inspired substitution by U's boss Steve Whitton turned the match around.

Jamie Moralee came on for Jason Dozzell and his work with danger-man Karl Duguid tested the Tangerines to the limit.

It took just seven minutes for the duo to equalise. The ball was fielded to Moralee who was in acres of space on the right. His dipping shot was met by Caig's second super save of the match but he was helpless to stop a charging Duguid slam the ball into the back of the net. 1-1. Pool left their fightback late. Clark Carlisle had the best chance of the half on 74 minutes when his well-placed header was agonising met by diving Brown.

The Bloomfield Road crowd of 3,462 were obviously unhappy with the display on the pitch. An angry crowd of 50 or so supporters vented their anger at chairman Karl Oyston after the match, calling for the family to sell the club.

After the match, Davies expressed his anger that his side had again pressed the self-destruct button. He said: "The first half was a little bit of what we were after but we certainly shot ourselves in the foot again.

"We simply didn't switch on for the first 20 minutes of the second half and it's not good enough."

Converted for the new archive on 14 July 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.