Match Report  |  Gresley FC vs Kidsgrove Athletic

Believe it or not there were two positives from today’s dismal game. The first the heavy rain predicted late this morning didn’t arrive and the second after all the hard work the ground staff put in during the week paid dividends and we could play a game, shame about the result!

If some of the players had put as much work in as those volunteers had then perhaps we would have taken something from the match but as it was, Kidsgrove worked harder and wanted it a lot more than Gresley as could be heard from their celebrations in the dressing room after the game.

To be blunt, this performance was abysmal with just two or three players coming off the pitch with any credit. Too many went missing and allowed a distinctly average side to dominate the game and fully deserve their three points.

Athletic started on the front foot with Eric Graves firing well over the bar from a good position. However, they were in front on 10 minutes when Lee Cropper was given so much time and space to power his header past the helpless Callum Hawkins.

Graves went close to extending the visitors’ lead but Hawkins, diving to his left, pushed the shot away.

Gresley looked so disjointed and a side which hadn’t played regular football so far this year due to the stop, start caused by the wettest four months for many a year. Passes were going all over the place but not to team mates, indeed they looked like they’d not played together, a team of individuals.

The second half started as the first had ended with Athletic taking the game to Gresley and ten minutes in they doubled their advantage. A free kick from the left found Jonathan Beaumont at the far post and he managed to put his header between Hawkins and his far post.

It was no more than the visitors deserved and they could have made Gresley’s afternoon even more miserable but a fine block, after a quick free kick, in the area stopped them adding another goal.

Another quick free kick caught Gresley napping. A slight deflection put the ball into the path of substitute Timothy Sanders in space and he coolly fired the ball past Hawkins.

The only shot Gresley had on target came with only ten minutes remaining and it was a half-hearted effort by substituted Shawn Richards which was easily dealt with by visiting keeper Dave Parton.

Gresley’s miserable afternoon was made complete when Alvin Jarvis was shown a straight red card after allegedly elbowing a Kidsgrove player. The supporters next to the incident didn’t agree with the referee’s decision and Jarvis adamantly denied that he’d caught the player after the game saying that the player was holing him around the chest from the back and he tried to shrug him off.

In the end it was a comfortable victory for Kidsgrove helping to ease any thought of relegation but for Gresley it made their position perilous although it was eased slightly on the news that Romulus, Market Drayton and Sheffield had all been beaten.

Gresley have a quick chance to put things right when they take on Stocksbridge Park Steels on Tuesday, weather permitting.