Pre-Season Friendly
The Moat Ground, Church Gresley
Saturday, 9th August 2014, 3.00pm
Gresley Sneak A Win
Gresley's final pre-season friendly ended in a most unfriendly way when both sides were reduced to ten men late on in the second half.
Unfortunately some poor tackles in both half's were allowed to go unpunished by the referee and tempers began to boil as players began to seek their own retribution.
Gresley's Brad Wells went close early on but saw his shot blocked followed by Rob Mulonga's run down the left which ended with his shot being cleared off the line.
The home side took the lead on 20 minutes and it had a large slice of luck about it. Hayden John's cross from the right was blocked and his second attempt found Rob Ritchie-Smith. His cross into the box was flicked on by Kieran O'Connell and the deflection off a defender wrong footed keeper Matthew Hails and the ball sailed into the far corner.
A powerful header from the visitors needed to be well held by Tom Turner and he made absolutely sure as he grabbed the ball.
At this point there were numerous poor tackles going unpunished by the official and one in particular by Ross Watson going through the back of Eric Graves which would surely have seen a straight red card had this game not have been a friendly. As it was Watson merely got a telling off by Mr Walker.
Gresley finished the first half strongly forcing two corners which were unproductive.
The second half will unfortunately be remembered, not for the football, but for the unsavoury scenes at the end of the game.
Gresley had chances to have increased their lead with Ritchie-Smith firing straight at Hails and then firing his shot narrowly wide of the far post. Town did have a chance to level but the final shot went well over the bar.
O'Connell was unlucky not to have added to his tally when he made a mazy run into the area past a couple of defenders and then saw his shot crash back off the near upright.
With just a couple of minutes remaining Gresley's John Guy put in a hard but fair tackle in on Michael Frew who took exception to it and rushed to Guy who very stupidly appeared to head butt Frew.
The pot that had been simmering during the game and especially in the second half boiled over resulting in a mêlée of players on the touch line. After several minutes the referee managed to regain some semblance of order and showed both Guy and Frew a straight red card apiece and Mr Walker made the wise decision of ending the game with a couple of minutes remaining to prevent any more incidents occurring.
