Wednesday 19th August 2009. UniBond Premier League.Played at New Manor Ground, Ilkeston.
Worksop Town 0
Nantwich Town 0
Admission - Season Ticket. Programme - £1.50
Attendance 185
It is said that over the course of a whole season tenuous '50/50' refereeing decisions that either go for you or against you balance themselves out evenly in the end.
That could also be said of events at the New Manor Ground tonight.
Well almost!
Worksop Town were the first to feel justifiably aggrieved when Nantwich's goalkeeper Lee Jones took out Danny Bacon, outside the box, with the kind of challenge that would've merited being punished in a Rugby League match for having been a 'high tackle', let alone a game of football.Bacon had just headed the ball over Jones and the keeper was stranded.
A red card looked so inevitable that even over on the Nantwich bench they had told their substitute goalkeeper to get ready because they thought he would be going on.
The referee called Jones over.
"Cheerio! Cheerio! Cheerio!" sang the jubilant home supporters.
Jones to defence: "Chill out guys, I'm not going anywhere ;-)"The surprise and relief on Jones' face was obvious, he knew he'd got off lightly ... and so did one of his team mates who commented to the Worksop fans within earshot behind the goal "I thought he was going off for that!" while shaking his head in disbelief.
Jones is a big lad and I'm not the sort of guy who'd grass anyone up, so I won't mention the name or number of the left back who said that ;-)
Whether Jones being dismissed would've changed the course of the game or not we'll never know, but he put up a fairly dogged resistance to match anything the Tigers threw at him tonight and definitely preserved the visitors clean sheet on a number of occasions. Especially in the first half when Worksop played as well as I've seen them do for a long time.Gary Townsend in particular put in a great shift.
Danny Bacon and Ben Tomlinson were keeping the visitors defence busy, while Anson and Callery both came close to breaking the deadlock too.
"Hey linesman, I owe you one, this big!"Ha, ha, isn't hindsight a wonderful thing
Half time, same as full time (oddly enough), nil nil.
On the hour Nantwich Town thought they had taken the lead but Mike Lennon's 'goal' was deemed by the officials to be offside.
No real complaints from anyone about that one and it looked as though it had been called right.
This was the classic game of two halves, Worksop were by far the best team in the first, but in the second they had to sit back and soak up a lot of Nantwich pressure. The fact that Jon Kennedy (the Tigers keeper) was awarded man of the match speaks volumes for how things went after the break.
But deep into injury time just as it was looking as though a battling second half rearguard action had won a hard earned point for Worksop against one of the best teams in the division (it had by the way, I'm just endeavouring to build up the suspense and drama for a thrilling climax), Rodney Jack broke free on the left for the visitors and hit the ball across the goal ... Nantwich had recreated this move several times already to no avail, despite a few near misses, even before Jack came on as a substitute ... but this time Ashley Carter got on the end of the cross and agonisingly for the Tigers, in the 93rd and final minute, scored the winning goal for Nantwich Town.The Dabbers had become the grabbers and Worksop were left to lament on all the goal scoring chances that had gone begging in the first half.
A cruel, cruel, agonising way to finish a game of football.
Err ... hang on there is an alternative ending too ...
Just as the Tigers fans were letting off steam with a few "Flipping heck, how unfortunate was that? One would've hoped we could have held on there for a just a tiny bit longer ... what old chap!?" type comments and a few unprintable type ones aimed at Lee Jones who was smirking all over his face - over yonder on the left touch line, a raised flag appeared.
Plowright, once again, was in roughly the same area of the pitch where he had failed to clearly see Jones' first half infringement from, when Nantwich Town scored their 'winner'.
It was obviously a bit of a blind spot for him.
Which in my humble, but extremely biased opinion wasn't necessarily a bad thing at this point in time.
It was unbelievable that he took heed of his assistant's obviously impaired view of the 'winning goal' and disallowed it.
Lee Jones ears must by now have been burning, the Tigers fans cheered as though they had won the game and gave him some real stick.
Personally, I have no sympathy for Jones, Danny Bacon has possibly only 50% of the Nantwich keepers body mass and could've been seriously hurt by that first half 'professional foul'.
But in light of that completely incorrect decision right at the death, I have every sympathy for anybody else from Nantwich who was present.
And I would have to concede that just maybe a couple of incorrect decisions may have balanced out 'more evenly' in Worksop Town's favour than they did that of Nantwich Town tonight.
Who said goalless draws had to be boring?
the66pow
