UniBond League Division One
The Moat Ground, Church Gresley
Tuesday, 14th September 2004, 7.45pm
Gresley's unbeaten run ends!
Manager Gary Norton said after the game that this was one of the best matches seen at the Moat Ground for quite a while and who could argue with him?
It was an entertaining end-to-end encounter with both sides trying to play football that the paying public like to see and the only difference between the teams was the clinical finishing of on-loan Walsall striker Kyle Perry.
It was the home side that had the first half chance on 4 minutes when Karl Brown's corner from the left was headed over the bar by Matt Smith.
The Bucks first chance came on 17 minutes when a superbly timed tackle by Ashley Dodd denied them their opportunity.
They went close again on 29 minutes but Leon Drysdale could only fire his shot from the edge of the box well wide of the mark.
On 36 minutes Gresley were unlucky not to have taken the lead when Aaron O'Connor received the ball from Jamie Barrett just inside the area turned, and fired in a shot that was well held by Stuart Brock.
The ball flew up the other end to Sean Platt who sent over a cross to his Walsall team mate Perry who made no mistake with his header to give the Bucks the lead.
Gresley came out for the second half looking to get back on terms and Brown had a half chance on 46 minutes but he scuffed his shot that was easily saved by Brock and ten minutes later Justin Rowe's shot-cum cross missed the far post by a whisker.
The visitor's had a justifiable shout for a penalty when Sean Parrish seemed to go down in the box from Ashley Dodd's tackle but referee Mr Fletcher waved play on. Minutes later Gresley themselves had a penalty shout when Brown went down from a challenge by Platt but again the official waved away the appeals.
Gresley were trying to get back into the game and were having the better of the play but their efforts were made all the harder on 77 when Andy Simpson received his marching orders for a second bookable offence.
With the home sides shape disrupted the Bucks capitalised three minutes later and it was Perry, a cousin of Gresley keeper Dale Belford, who doubled their advantage. He ran on to a fine through ball from Parrish and hit a first time strike across the diving Belford and into the corner of the net.
Gresley should have got on the scoresheet on 82 minutes when O'Connor found himself in space after taking a header from Smith but dwelt on the ball too long to allow Brock to block the shot.
With less than five minutes of normal time left Gresley had a couple of further chances. The first when Smith's shot on the turn went wide and then when Perry's poor clearance found the head of Dodd but his header went over the bar.
Manager's View
"I'm disappointed. It was a great game of football one of the best seen at the Moat Ground for quite a while - both sides wanted to get the ball down and play. They are a very good footballing side and they wanted to get the ball at the back and start moving it around. The pitch is in great shape so they were able to do that.
"It was disappointing to concede the goal the way we did. We'd defended superbly well but to concede a goal - we switched off a little bit. Their on-loan striker has come in today and scored a couple of goals.
"Second half we went for it and created some decent chances but it's just not dropping for us at the moment. You can see the confidence just isn't there with some of the players and even when we were down to ten men we had a great opportunity to put us 2-1 and then have a good go to try and sneak a point from the game. Aaron just took too long and the keeper made a great save to be honest. But, before the keeper could dive the ball should have been in the back of the net.
"I was very disappointed with the sending off. I've said from day one that the discipline had to be of the highest order in this league and yet we've had our fourth red card of the season and this was the third game out of seven were we've been down to ten men. We are not going to win football matches like that - we've got away with it twice getting a great win and a hard earned draw last week. We got caught out tonight and that is where the second goal came from. We lost our shape a little bit chasing the game.
"It's not nice to taste defeat but being realistic I've just said to the players it's the first one of the season. They are a good side and its no disgrace but we need to move on and we've got a great chance on Saturday to put it right.
"I thought Aaron did well, he worked very, very hard but both him and Justin don't seem to be having their fair share of luck. All Justin needs is a goal. Their striker tonight had a similar chance tonight for his second goal that Aaron had in the first half and he's tucked it in the far corner. When you've got quality strikers like that they'll nick you goals and that's what wins games and gets points."
