East Midlands Counties League
Selhurst Street, Nottingham
Saturday, 17th April 2010, 3.00pm
Blenkinsopp Double Helps Gresley On Their Way
It took two goals in four minutes from David Blenkinsopp to settle Gresley's nerves after they'd been rocked by their hosts who had taken a second minute lead through Josh Croft.
Gresley were caught flat as Croft broke down the right and fired a low shot across visiting keeper Gary Hateley and into the far corner of the net.
The visitors almost levelled four minutes later when a long clearance from Tom Land bounced on the rock hard surface and with the Pheasants' keeper Paul Stanhope well out of his box Blenkinsopp almost capitalised with the faintest of touches past the keeper but the ball was cleared away by a defender.
On 9 minutes Stanhope made an awful hash of gathering what should have been a comfortable save from Brian Woodall's low shot. The ball went through his hands and rolled along the goal line helped by the ridge in the goal mouth and away to safety.
A minute later Stanhope did well to deny Woodall as he blocked the shot with his legs however, on 18 minutes Gresley got the goal their pressure deserved. Woodall did well to flick the ball onto Blenkinsopp who lobbed the ball over the onrushing Stanhope.
On 22 minutes Gresley took the lead when Woodall's corner from the left was headed goalward but was blocked on the line but Blenkinsopp was on hand to stab the ball home from close in.
Gresley were putting the home side under pressure who were finding it difficult to get out of their own half and that pressure yielded a goal on 36 minutes.
Another good move saw Blenkinsopp in on goal but his stinging shot was parried by Stanhope but Adam Betteridge was quick to react and slipped the rebound home.
Radford made a rare effort on goal with two minutes of the half remaining when Alfa Gray tested Hateley but the keeper was up to his task and saved the effort.
Gresley had one more chance before the break when a good move between Blenkinsopp and Royce Turville led to a cross into the area where Woodall tried a spectacular bicycle kick when he had lots of time to have controlled the ball and pick his spot.
The visitors came out looking for further goals and almost grabbed one on 47 minutes when Stanhope missed Woodall's corner but there was no-one on hand to poke the ball home and the ball was knocked out by a defender only for the referee Mr Royston to somehow decide that it was a goal kick!
Blenkinsopp then provided a great cross into the area where Turville couldn't get enough on the ball and it went tamely to the keeper.
On 70 minutes Gresley almost gifted Radford a goal. With Hateley and Gareth Langford both leaving the ball for each other to deal with home substitute Dale Moon nipped in and lobbed the ball just over the bar.
Land then had a chance but put his free header from Woodall's corner over the bar. With just a minute of normal time left an almost carbon copy of what happened earlier occurred. A long kick from Stanhope was allowed to bounce and some indecision between Hateley and Land over who should clear the danger this time allowed Croft the chance to head towards the goal but his effort hit the upright.
Gresley were rewarded for their efforts on a very warm sunny afternoon with another goal deep into time added on. Substitute Richard Butler made a good run down the left and his cross was met by fellow substitute Matt Hill who controlled the ball turned and blasted a low show past Stanhope and into the far bottom corner.
Manager's View
"The result from Bardon is going to make life difficult. Out of the three possible results that probably was the one we least favoured. Credit to Dunkirk, they've been at it all season and have had very few mishaps.
"The only frustration is when we went there and lost three points with the side we had with the reserve lads in and the decimation of the squad. If we'd have gone there and given it a real go with a fully fit squad we may have had less points to make up but that's football. You put the side out you've got available on the day and on that day we didn't have the options available.
"Credit to them but it's not over yet. They've got five games left but realistically with the goal difference we've got to expect them to lose two of those games.
"We'll keep going and doing what we can. We cannot take the foot off the gas yet as the absolute minimum we want to finish second and there's still a lot of hard work left to do that. We know what we've got to do and our goal difference is better than Bardon Hills' and obviously today's results increase that factor as well.
"So it's a minimum of four wins from the last five games to guarantee second. We've got some tough games coming up ourselves and it's not over yet. The pressure is on Dunkirk to keep grinding the results out and in fairness that's what they've been doing.
"We tend not to make things easy for ourselves. It was a very sloppy start. The game hadn't really got any pattern to it and it was a very scrappy first couple of minutes. A few of the lads were appealing for an offside but in fairness to the linesman Markel Bailey on the far side had tracked back and was playing the nine onside and he took it very well. Initially the flag went up and then it went down and it was the right decision.
"I was pleased because we then responded very well and it could have gone one or two ways but the lads got their game together and for a good spell of twenty, twenty five minutes we played some good stuff.
"We got the two goals to get us in front and then we managed to snatch a third to get a grip on the game. To be honest we needed that third because Radford came out very well for the second half and we really didn't get going.
"It was difficult conditions, a bobbly pitch and a very hot day but they seemed to adapt to that a little bit better than us and I felt that if they could have nicked a goal maybe their second half deserved it may have been a very interesting last few minutes for us.
"Then Matt Hill popped up with arguably the best goal of the day deep in injury time with a fantastic finish to perhaps give the score an unfair look four-one. I think it was a tighter game than that and credit to Radford for the part they played in it.
"It was frustrating. Brian Woodall had a couple of chances and Royce Turville and David Blenkinsopp worked hard enough but they haven't managed to have that bit of quality today in the second half in front of goal and I thought at three-one they only need a goal and we had a few hairy moments when Gary Hateley and the back three sort of got caught in two minds between themselves and they nipped in. If one of those had gone in it could have been a difficult last few minutes for us. A bit of panic may have set in.
"But we ground it out and I'd have been happy with a result like this in other games this season. Five out of the six we've lost have been away from home and if you look at the bigger picture it's been our away performances that we've got to be more resolute in. Even the games we've drawn apart from one the Radcliffe game have been away from home which isn't a bad result sometimes.
"We've drawn games away from home and you consider it two lost points because of the performance on the day.
"We've had to dig deep again today and the bonus was having Tom Betteridge and Matt Hill back in the squad because I wasn't expecting to have them. Jordi Gough has a dead leg that he said he picked up playing for us but I'm not too sure about that one because he played for Edge Hill on Wednesday so that's frustrating because Jordi's been doing very well in midfield.
"We've got some more knocks. We brought in Markell Bailey and Reiss Morley who have helped us in the past. Unfortunately, Reiss had to come off four or five minutes or a little bit longer after going on. He's got a kick on the foot which he injured playing for us at Radcliffe early in the season so he's off to A&E to have an x-ray on that.
"Mickey Lyons was due to miss Tuesday night because he was going away on holiday tomorrow but obviously with the situation with flights there may be a possibility that he won't go and he'll play for us because his ban is up. Rob Spencer will be available because he only had a one game ban.
"Stefan Marshall didn't turn up today. I think he was frustrated after Tuesday's game. He walked off straight away and left the game and we were expecting to pick him up today at the pick-up point so we can only presume that he's decided to hang his boots up which is frustrating and not very professional but it's not been the first time that he's done that to us but we'll move on from that.
"We've got plenty of lads who want to be here and win these last few games and a lot of lads who have pledged an interest for next season as well regardless of what situation we are in, in terms of whether we win the league or not.
"We've asked Tommy Leighton to let us know if he'll be available for Tuesday. We wanted him with us last Tuesday but he had a game on the Wednesday and in fairness to him he said that would be his first priority. I've got in touch with him to see if he had a game this midweek and if he hasn't he'll be available so I'm just waiting for a response on that.
"Jack Coulson picked a bit of a knee injury up so that's why he had to come off. Gareth Langford's hamstring is very tight and we played him with that. How tight, we'll see in the morning if he turns out for Edge Hill in a cup final that is scheduled. I've asked him to be careful because we've got Tuesday night's game in mind and Gareth has been an invaluable player for us.
"I might pull Lee Stretton out of the reserves who signed just before the deadline into the squad and there are one or two other lads depending on the positions we might need. If we have a problem with centre halves I might have Lee in for a bit of cover. The reserves have a game on Tuesday but I'm sure Lee won't mind being on the bench.
"We'll have to see tomorrow when the injuries have settled down a little bit. We're hoping to have Markel available but he has a bit of a groin so we'll have to assess that and get permission from Eastwood who he's registered with at the moment."
