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Gresley goal famine
Story courtesy of Burton Mail
Gresley Rovers’ need of a reliable and consistent goalscorer was never better illustrated that at the Moat Ground on Tuesday night.
Rovers played well enough against Banks’s League Premier Division leaders Oldbury United to have won their League Cup semi-final at the first time of asking.Instead, they face a tough trip to the Black Country on Tuesday night after failing to profit from the best of their pressure.
“We should have sewn it up by half-time,” was the snap judgement of manager Frank Northwood. Gresley, of course, have a good record against Oldbury so defeat in the replay will be regarded at the Moat Ground as being far from inevitable.
But there is no escaping the fact that as Gresley face up to the make-or-break period in their pursuit of honours and excellence, goals are in worrying short supply.
Keith Hill and Martin Devaney are both talented craftsmen, but neither of them are prolific scorers.
How ironic, then, that this weeks rumours – as yet unconfirmed – should be flying around South Derbyshire that Brian Beresford’s stay at the Moat Ground is coming to an end.
Not since the hey-day of Gordon Duggins in the sixties have Rovers boasted a striker capable of devouring chances in such vast quantities.
For two seasons Beresford had a monopoly on goals at the Moat Ground – 80 of them, in fact, at more or less an average of a goal a game.
Sadly, Beresford has not looked the same player since an eye injury suffered in a pre-season friendly forced him to miss the first three months of the campaign, though no doubt he would argue that he has not been given enough of an opportunity to prove there is still a place for him in Northwood’s plans.
