UniBond League Division One
The Moat Ground, Church Gresley
Saturday, 9th December 2006, 3.00pm
Magpies have wings clipped!
David Blenkinsopp's fourth goal in four league games helped Gresley Rovers on their way to three points. But, the task was not an easy one as lowly Chorley fought tooth and nail to grab at least a share of the points.
Indeed, it was the visitors who had the first chance on 8 minutes when a pass from James Sheppard set Kenny Mayers down the flank. His cross found Jordan Goodeve lurking at the near post but his shot on the turn went over the bar.
The Magpies went close again just a few minutes later when Gresley full back Nicky Carter gave away a free kick just 20 yards out. Goodeve's shot took a deflection off the Gresley wall and left keeper Tommy Whittle wrong footed but fortunately for the home side the ball went wide of the mark.
Gresley slowly got into the game and began to play some good passing football. On 18 minutes Tom Groves smashed a vicious goal bound shot that Danny Hurst, the twelfth custodian of the season for Chorley, did well to push away for a corner at full stretch.
However, the home side only had to wait a further minute to take the lead. A superb pass from Mark Smith to Groves led to a cross that found Blenkinsopp who calmly lifted the ball over the on-rushing Hurst and into the net.
Groves went close himself ten minutes later when Carl Slater found Blenkinsopp. The young striker's cross landed to Chorley's Neil Wright who missed his kick and the ball landed kindly for Groves but he put his shot into the side netting.
Slater found Blenkinsopp again and this time the striker picked out Smith who made is way into the area. Hurst came out of his goal and went down very early but Smith couldn't lift the ball over the keeper and Hurst managed to grab the shot.
On the half hour Aaron O'Connor almost caught Hurst knapping when he fastened onto a poor defensive header and tried an audacious lob but the keeper caught his attempt as he scurried back to his line.
Smith again picked out Blenkinsopp on 64 minutes with a pinpoint pass but his clever chip just cleared the cross bar.
Five minutes later Chorley were back on terms against the run of play. Gresley manager Gary Norton had been forced to shuffle his backline when right back Dan Douglas was carried off with an ankle injury. Groves, who'd been dropped back into the full back slot hadn't had time to settle into his new role when Mayers got around the back of the defence and sent over a cross that found Goodeve who then laid the ball back to Dave Woodruff who drilled a low shot into the corner of the net.
Gresley now seemed unsettled and almost gifted Chorley another goal when Ridgway gave the ball away in a dangerous position to Adam Roscoe but Carter was on hand and his perfectly timed tackle saved the day.
The Magpies' lead lasted just eight minutes when O'Connor struck to give his side all three points. A corner from the left was only half cleared by Hurst and the ball was collected by O'Connor on the edge of the box.
The Gresley top scorer cut inside his marker and hit a low shot through a forest of legs for his thirteenth league goal of this campaign.
If the Gresley faithful thought that goal would extinguish the visitors' resistance they were to be proved misguided because Chorley had one final attempt that almost grabbed them a share of the spoils.
A big punt from Hurst bounced invitingly on the edge of the Gresley box. Whittle was in two minds and was beaten to the ball by Goodeve who headed the ball past the keeper but then hit his first time volley wide of the target.
Manager's View
"As I said last week the three points was going to be the most important thing. I felt today in the first half we played some cracking football and I was really, really pleased with that. The only disappointment was that we only had the one goal to shot for it at half time.
"I said to the guys at half time many times this season we've been in that situation where we haven't really played well in the first half but we've been in touch and on some occasions we've come out and managed to turn things around. Obviously when the equaliser went in we were looking at our watches there's twenty minutes to go you think Chorley are going to continue their mini revival that's happened over the last couple of games but fortunately we managed to get the win that overall I think we deserved.
"When they equalised it was a scrappy spell and I attribute the goal down to the fact that Dan Douglas had just come off and less than two minutes after the reorganisation the goal has come. A ball was played in behind Tom Groves who had just switched to full back and was acclimatising to that position. Colin Hoyle got dragged out- pulled out of the centre the ball was whipped across and a midfielder let a runner go and he's drilled a decent goal in from just outside the box. So the goal was, in my opinion, as a result of moving one or two people about.
"But, fortunately we managed to bounce back from it. I felt that Aaron got a goal today that not just today's performance deserved - he worked very, very hard - he's not scored for two or three games but his performances have been a lot better and he deserved his goal."
