Gresley Rovers vs Paget Rangers
It’s a Cup cakewalk for Rovers – Andy Parker – Burton Mail
More at walking pace than at a canter, Gresley Rovers hit the cup trail once more on Saturday.
Victory in an ill-balanced FA Cup preliminary over Banks’s League rivals Paget earned a mouth-watering trip to Gainsborough a week on Saturday and gave Moat boss Frank Northwood another opportunity to, as he would say, “shuffle the pack a bit.”
But Northwood will have gained little more that the prospect of an enticing crack at the Northern League outfit from a tepid tie that was more or less finished as a contest by the 24th minute.
By the time winger Keiron Smith and new boy Paul Fernihough had volleyed a hapless Paget outfit into submission and set the stage for an aimless and unsatisfying remaining 66 minutes.
“We finished it early and then just knocked the ball about,” was a “satisfied” Northwood’s summing up of the game afterwards.
Midfielder Graham Fearn put it another way. “We peaked too early and then lost momentum,” said the have boots will travel midfielder whose soccer odyssey has led him from the Baseball Ground to the Moat via Burton Albion and a string of Midlands non-league clubs.
“We’ve coasted in a lot of games but you’ve got to have that killer instinct, and out penalty miss was critical today.”
Fearn might have fancied a crack himself from the 12-yard spot after Ian Wells had been sent tumbling on 11 minutes.
But the former Hereford striker, mindful, perhaps, of Northwood’s call for more goals on the eve of the game, opted to have a crack himself but wafted a dismal shot well wide of the right hand post.
It was not the best of days for the big centre forward, a swirling wind and bouncy surface making his accurate control and passing game supremely difficult, but the same might be applied to the several other ball artists on parade.
In the end collective effort rather than individual contributions proved well good enough to whet the appetite for the additional ones that never arrived. Smith gleefully whacked in the first after just eight minutes, a careless backpass having enabled Steve Astley to show impressive control before hitting a cross that Fearn turned back with difficulty for Smith to thunder past the exposed Paget keeper.
Then Fernihough was generously given space to open his account, despatching a meaty, deflected effort from Richard Denby’s corner.
Paget seemed barely capable of putting Northwood’s brave decision to replace skipper Bob Aston in goal with the fledgling Simon Harrison to the test, but as Rovers’ zest waned midfielder Steve Jones had the former Chesterfield youngster scampering along his line as a firm header flew wide. Then Harrison quickly narrowed Derek Christopher’s angles as the visiting frontrunner shot just wide with the Rovers defence for once wide open.
Gresley Rovers (2) 0
Paget Rangers (0) 0
Scorers: Smith 8, Fernihough 24.
Gresley Rovers: Harrison, Beattie, Perry, Denby, Fernihough, Page, Fearn, Oldershaw (Bottomley 60), Wells (Hill 69), Astley, Smith.
Paget Rangers: Wilding, Hughes, Aorki, Corrance, Link, Jones (Kennedy 65), Whipps, Scally, Hunter, Christopher, Benjamin. Sub not used: Platt.
Gresley man-of-the-match: Page.
Referee: M Eden (Nottingham).
Attendance: 272
