East Midlands Counties League
The Moat Ground, Church Gresley
Saturday, 12th September 2009, 3.00pm
Three Up For Spencer
Gresley had to battle back from a goal down as their visitors Ibstock United showed why they are the draw specialists in this league with a determined defensive display in the first half.
United are yet to win a game but they possibly thought they had a decent chance after Gresley's Adam Betteridge unfortunately opened their account but Gresley proved far too strong in the second half to run our very comfortable winners in the end.
The home side could have been three goals up in the first 10 minutes with Rob Spencer going close with hardly a minute on the clock and then again being inches from Brian Woodall's flick on in the box a minute later. Woodall himself went close firing a shot fractionally wide on 9 minutes.
Gresley may have rued those misses as the visitors opened the scoring in a rare attacking move down the left. The cross seemed to elude keeper Simon Baldwin and hit the far post and as it came out the ball hit the unfortunate Adam Betteridge who couldn't get out of the way and the ball ended in the back of the net.
Ibstock then seemed to drop back allowing Gresley to come on to them and absorbing all the efforts to break them down.
The closest Gresley came to equalising was on 32 minutes when Carl Slater mad a decent run down the right and sent over a cross to Tom Betteridge but the header went straight into the keeper's midriff.
United's only clear cut chance came towards the end of the first half when a great shot from Dan Stevenson was expertly tipped over by Baldwin.
Gresley looked far more determined in the second half and they levelled just five minutes after the restart as Spencer headed home Woodall's cross from the left.
Six minutes later Gresley took the lead when a ball from Woodall finally found Carl Slater who made space before firing a low shot home at the near post.
United looked shell shocked and it got worse for the visitors as Gresley added a third goal on 59 minutes. A corner from the right by Matt Hill found Spencer unmarked and his header left keeper Stephen Fowkes floundering.
The heat and the pressure was now telling on United as they began to tire and they looked a spent force spending most of the time in their own half defending for all they were worth as Gresley threatened to add more goals.
On 63 minutes Mark Blount went close heading Hills corner from the right just wide and two minutes later after a terrific run down the left by Tom Betteridge ended with the wide man's shot hitting the junction of post and bar with the keeper beaten.
Fowkes did very well just minutes later when he managed to get a finger tip to a stinging shot from Mickey Lyons sending the ball over the bar.
On 79 minutes Fowkes wasn't quite so good when he completely fumbled a cross from Woodall and Spencer was on hand to tap the ball home.
Three minutes later United were lucky not to have been reduced to ten men when Dean Smith cynically brought Woodall down as the front man had left him for dead and was racing towards goal but the referee considered the foul far enough out to only show a yellow card.
Substitute Matt Weightman had a chance but headed Hill's corner wide and with a couple of minutes remaining Woodall hit a shot straight at the keeper.
Slater almost added a fifth which on their second half display Gresley deserved, but after beating Fowkes to the ball and poking the ball towards the net an Ibstock defender managed to get back and clear the effort off the line.
Manager's View
"We were very disappointed with the first fifteen minutes of the game as we should have been three-nil up.
"All the players saw that we had enough chances to score and we didn't take them and we seemed to switch off thinking it was going to be a nice easy game.
"We gave a very sloppy goal away which was very disappointing but we got them in at half time, had a few harsh words, a few home truths , too many prima donnas in the club who are not basically here doing the bread and butter work. If you do bread and butter work you get results. Second half we played football, did the bread and butter and we were a lot better team.
"The early poor results the team was not quite ready but it's settling down now. Jack Coulson made a big difference coming in as centre half in the Ellistown game and mark Blount playing in the last two games. It makes a hell of a difference to us when we have two decent centre halves to play. It gives us confidence at the back and particularly in the air as well. Particularly with Mark's experience, it's brushed off on every one.
"We don't know if we'll have Mark for anymore games. That's up to Mark but obviously we'd love Mark to play for us for a few more games but that's Mark's decision. He agreed to help us out and I think we've got Eddie (Paul Edwards) back next week.
"I don't think we've any injury concerns ahead of next week's game. We've got Carl Slater unavailable but we've got three, Royce Turville, Callum Keenan, Stefan Marshall training after the game today and all three of them are buzzing and they all want their place back and it's healthy competiton."
