Tividale vs Gresley Rovers
Rovers at their best - Andy Parker - Burton Mail
Gresley's New Year resolution was to improve on Saturday's poor performance at Wolverhampton Casuals - and they kept it in emphatic fashion.
After seeing his side overwhelm their lowly hosts with a blistering second half performance manager Frank Northwood revealed that a spot of group therapy had done the trick.
"The lads knew they'd played badly on Saturday. We got together and had a talk about it and they responded very well - this was just the improvement we were looking for," he said.
"It took a while to break them down but we stuck to our task well."
In fact, Gresley dominated both Tividale and the stormy conditions for the whole of the first half without a goal to show for it before destroying the home side's own aspirations of a good start to 1991 in the second half.
The teams had been beck on the field for only three minutes before full back Simon Porter failed to make a routine interception of Richard Denby's through ball.
Brian Beresford raced clear and rounded keeper Peter Checketts whose response was to dump the Gresley striker in the goalmouth mud. But the inevitable was delayed only by a matter of seconds as Rovers' top scorer despatched the ball into the back of the net from the spot.
Five minutes later Tividale erred again. Defender Roy Lyness missed Richard Denby's right wing corner at the near post, and Kieron Smith turned neatly before firing a venomous shot into the roof of the net.
Lyness's misery was complete when his attempt to prevent Beresford from converting another Denby cross - this time from the left - succeeded only in turning the ball past his own keeper for Gresley's third - the first time for over a month that the league leaders had served up more than two goals in a game.
A 10th straight league win was now a formality and Craig Weston deservedly added a fourth, firing neatly past Checketts after bursting clear onto the keeper's poor clearance.
Smith could have added yet another goal but fired over after being set up by Carl Rathbone. By then, though, Rovers had done more than enough to imbue their travelling fans a handsome measure of New Year cheer.
Tividale (0) 0
Gresley Rovers (0) 4
Scorers: Beresford 48 (pen), Smith 53, Lyness 64 (og), Weston 67.
Tividale: Checketts, Porter, Deakin, Maund, Lyness, Woodall (Simms 77), Hampton, Woodbine, Hartle, Campbell, Bedford. Sub not used: Dunkley.
Gresley Rovers: Moore, Barry, Elliott, Denby, Land, Astley, Weston, Smith, Beresford, Rathbone, Lovell. Subs not used: Adcock, Redfern.
Gresley Man-of-the-Match - Gil Land.
Referee: M A Cooper (Walsall).
Attendance: 100
