Pre-season friendly
Harrison Park
Saturday, 17th July 2004, 12.00pm
First friendly
Gresley fielded a side with only three of the squad from last season with manager Gary Norton giving a run out to his new recruits and some trialists.
Leek were on top from the start and began to apply some pressure to the Gresley defence. It took a superbly timed tackle by young defender Mark Leeson to deny Richard Eyre an early opportunity to open the scoring.
The lively Carl Frost was giving the Gresley back line problems and it took a fine save on 17 minutes from Dale Belford to keep the score even after the number 10 had ran onto a through ball from Alex Brown.
Gresley made their first attempt on goal on 23 minutes when Sean Gummer's pass into the box was just too far in front of Andy Simpson.
Three minutes later Simpson had another half chance but his overhead shot went wide of an upright.
Belford was quick off the mark to smother another Leek attack as the home side threatened again.
On the half hour Gresley had a let off when a cross/shot from Frost skimmed the crossbar and a few minutes later Ross Clegg was allowed far to much freedom to run at the defence but his shot was very disappointing and flew high over the bar.
Just as the half time whistle was about to be blown Leek had a few chances to take the lead. Belford pulled off a fine save to deny Frost and then they had a player take an embarrassing air shot in front of goal the ball fell to another player whose shot was well blocked before a final shot went wide of the post.
The second half opened with a monsoon that threatened to flood the pitch leaving inches of water all over the surface affecting both sides attempts at playing any sort of football.
Frost, still giving the Gresley defence a headache, flashed a cross into the visitor's danger area on 50 minutes but there was no one to put the ball away.
One disappointing episode came on 55 minutes when a case of "handbags" between Gresley's Liam Hebberd and Leek's Ross Clegg ended with both players being red carded by the referee much to everyone's surprise.
As Gresley re-organised Leek took the lead. On 59 minutes a cross from Ben Johnson was well collected by Dean Butterworth who turned and fired in a shot into the top corner from 22 yards beating Belford who had come forward off his line.
Within a minute of the re-start Gummer should have put Gresley back on equal terms. A superb through ball from Jamie Barrett left the Leek back line flatfooted and Gummer did well to beat the advancing home keeper Steve Hodgson but was unfortunate to see his shot come back of the post and away to safety.
Gresley's substitute keeper, James Pemberton, did well to deny Leek any further goals making fine saves at the end of the 90 minutes.
Manager's View
"I'm not going to make too many judgements on that game but I was quite pleased with it.
"You could see that the players had been working hard over the last two or three weeks doing their running and you get into a game situation and one or two are a little rusty, giving the ball away in the first 15 or 20 minutes a little too cheaply.
"Shape wise I was quite happy. Three out of the back four were very inexperienced lads. Leeson and Guiney at centre half did very well. They got caught once or twice resulting in Leek having one or two opportunities in the first half but overall I was very pleased with their performance. I was also encouraged by Jonathan Rowe's performance at full back.
"Dale Belford did very well in the first half. He kept us in it making some smart saves and when he was replaced by young James Pemberton he made a nice saves as well and it will be a good experience for him. He's only 18 and he's had a little taste of first team action now.
"I'm looking towards the Burton game now. Gary did well today and he was pleased to skipper the side. We saw a little bit more from Gary today he was talking a little more to the younger players and he's looking forward to the Burton game as are the other players.
"The sendings off spoilt it today - a bit of common sense could have been used. Both Paul (Leek Manager) and I now face players who will face a ban at the beginning of the season. That took the shine off the game. To have someone sent off so early in the second half when I was looking at shape and wanting to try one or two things was a shame because I couldn't do that playing 10 against 10."
