Pre-season Friendly
The Moat Ground, Church Gresley
Tuesday, 1st August 2006, 7.45pm
Gladiators grab a victory
This was a dull game with not too many clear-cut chances for either side but it was a chance to give players a run out as both managers finalise their squads for the forthcoming new campaign.
Gresley went closest to opening the scoring when a Curtis Shaw corner had to be cleared off the line on 20 minutes.
Fifteen minutes later, however, Matlock took the lead when a slight defensive slip allowed Jason Bedworth to run in on goal beating keeper Tommy Whittle slotting the ball into the far corner of the net.
The Gladiators should have doubled their advantage on 41 minutes when Tony Hemmings was adjudged by the referee to have fouled Bedworth in the box. Simon Barraclough took the spot kick and embarrassingly put his shot well wide of the post with Whittle going the wrong way.
Two minutes later an inviting low cross by Tom Betteridge evaded all the Gresley players as the ball flew through the goal area.
Whittle was almost caught out on the stroke of half time when Kris Bowler's cross-cum-shot cleared the keeper's grasp and landed the wrong side of the far post.
Gresley manager Gary Norton made three changes for the start of the second period bringing on Ravi Sangha, Steve Gomm and Jamie Barrett for Curtis Shaw, Eugene Francis and Richard Lonsdale.
Substitute Sangha almost got Gresley level on 58 minutes when he beat the Matlock offside trap and chipped keeper Andy Richmond but unfortunately it just cleared the bar and landed on the top of the net.
Nicky Carter then went close minutes later putting a 25-yard shot just past the upright.
Richmond made a superb save on 70 minutes to deny Steve Gomm when he managed to get a fingertip on Gomm's chip to turn it away for a corner. Matt Millns' header from the flag kick when straight into the arms of the grateful keeper.
Matlock had very few chances in the second half but they should have made one of them count on 74 minutes but Ben Rack could only blaze his shot high over the bar from the edge of the box.
The home side had two more chances towards the end of the game with Carter putting a shot just wide of the far post and then the same player putting over a tempting cross that Paul Edwards headed wide.
Manager's View
"I thought for the first twenty, twenty-five minutes we equipped ourselves quite well and we looked fairly comfortable but then the last fifteen, twenty minutes of the first half it was the complete opposite. Twice, three times nearly within fifteen minutes we've been done by one ball - one long ball through our back four. One resulted in a goal, one resulted in a penalty and one resulted in just being flagged just offside.
"Our shape went a little bit which was very disappointing and at times in the second half it went from one extreme to another. One ten-minute spell we played some good stuff and then you go through another ten-minute spell of madness - from the sublime to the ridiculous. There were some really good stuff going forward but then defensively and work rate wise it was a big thing for me tonight. There were one or two people who weren't prepared or perhaps were prepared to do it but were not putting it in.
"It was disappointing but it was a reality check in some respects. It's okay playing the likes of Burton and Nottingham Forest on a fine sunny afternoon when the tempo of the game isn't quite so fast and we were popping nice little passes about. But the real test for me, and that's why I wanted to play Matlock, was to see where we were against a typical, well-established UniBond Premier outfit. And, although the score line was only one-nil it probably wouldn't have been an injustice if it had been two or three.
"Although having said that I think we deserved a goal with some of the effort we put in particularly late on I thought we had two or three half decent efforts and it would have been nice to have got on the score sheet but perhaps a draw would not have been a fair reflection of the game.
"I think their quality was evident with organisation and work rate and on that showing we've got a fair bit of work to do."
