FA Trophy Preliminary Round
The Moat Ground, Church Gresley
Saturday, 9th October 2004, 1.00pm
Tulips beaten
To the neutral this must have been a typical cup match with plenty of goals and even a missed penalty. But, to the Moat Ground faithful it was a nail-biting match.
Gresley Rovers started the game brightly and caused an early panic attack in the Spalding defence after just two minutes. A minute later, however, the Tulips when up the other end and took a shock lead. A defensive header by Matt K Smith hit Ian Dunn and flew past the unfortunate James Pemberton in the home goal.
The home side hit back and on 5 minutes were unlucky not to have got on even terms when Emeka Ejiofor's quickly taken free kick rattled the bar and cleared from danger.
However, Gresley did not have to wait too long for a goal. A clever header on 8 minutes from Ejiofor put Liam Hebberd through on goal and the young striker made no mistake blasting the ball past Ian Pledger who did well to get a hand to the ball but couldn't keep it out.
The action swung down to the other end and Spalding went close to taking the lead again but Liam Nimmo's shot clipped the top of the bar and over for a goal kick.
Three minutes after drawing level Gresley took the lead. An awful back pass by Mark Thompson was seized upon by Aaron O'Connor who coolly rounded the keeper before slotting the ball home for his eighth goal of the season.
Two minutes later Gary White fired in a thunderous shot that Pledger punched away without knowing too much about it.
Just as the crowd were getting their breath Spalding drew level on 21 minutes when debutant Jimmy Turner appeared to get a kick in the face but referee Mr Dudley chose to ignore the protests and allowed play to continue. Gresley's defence failed to clear the ball and Lee Sowerby somehow managed to slot the ball home past Pemberton.
On the half hour a superb run by O'Connor down the left resulted in some good defending as they managed to take the ball off Ejiofor's head for a corner. Brown swung in the flag kick and Turner was unlucky to see his effort go wide.
Gresley came out for the second period looking for the lead and almost got it. A half cleared ball was headed back into the danger area where Ejiofor's header went just over.
Spalding again took the lead after some poor defending. Gary White took too long to clear the ball and was robbed by Andy Stanhope and then Turner should have done much better but he failed to clear the ball and Dunn took advantage to ram the ball home.
On 62 minutes substitute Justin Rowe played Karl Brown in on goal but he could not control the ball to take advantage of the pass.
However, two minutes later Gresley got their reward for the pressure they'd applied. They were awarded a free kick just outside the area taken by White. The rocket like shot that Clint Eastwood would have been proud of flew past the wall taking a slight deflection giving Pledger no chance at all.
On 68 minutes Hebberd got his second of the game and Gresley's fourth when he was first to react to O'Connor's shot that had come off the upright poking the ball home.
It should have been game, set and match on 75 minutes when Robbie Greetham upended Hebberd in the box. Ejiofor took the spot kick but the ball hit the inside of the post and incredibly rolled across the face of the goal and out of play.
Manager's View
"That was a bizarre afternoon. We ended up four three winners so it must have been an entertaining afternoon for the neutral! The two benches were looking a little bit nervous as the ninety minutes progressed.
"From our point of view I feel that that was the poorest performance of the fifteen we've played so far this season but we've managed to win the game.
"We shot ourselves in the foot as few times defensively today but the lads have showed character and come back and got us into the next round.
"There were some goals - Aaron is absolutely flying at the moment. It was a good response after going one down after just three minutes. We got to the ball in the box and headed it and it hit their guy and went in unfortunately.
"Liam Hebberd did well and he's going to cause a lot of problems to a lot of teams this season. Everything Aaron hits at the moment seems to go in and they both got themselves decent goals, which put us two one up.
"We didn't deal with their second goal very well. Our defence has been the strength of our season so far but today I felt we were a shadow of ourselves. Hoody has been sorely missed today. I hate to say that one player makes a team but Hoody's presence wasn't there. Young Jimmy Turner has come in and he's done OK. He's quick but it was a tough baptism of fire for him today. When we went three two down I wanted to do something offensively, so we went to three at the back and we got ourselves back in the game. After we took the lead I don't think they troubled us again and the penalty would have wrapped things up nicely.
"It was a difficult to bring Turner off on his debut but there is no room for sentiment. We were losing the game and I wanted to take a risk really going three at the back. We'd defended poorly so I thought going three at the back would not be that much worse so I went with a two and a one up front and it seemed to work.
"When took the lead I wanted to keep it tight so I brought Ashley Dodd back and put Andy Simpson in midfield.
"I was disappointed with our defensive performance but as I've just said to the lads that a sign of a good side is when you play poorly you win the game and fortunately we've managed to do that. It doesn't matter in cup games whether you win ten nine or one nil as long as you get into the next round, which is the important thing.
"James Pemberton did nothing wrong today and can't be faulted for any of the goals they were a result of some poor defending."
