Saturday 29 January 2011

Worksop Town 1 v Ossett Town 4 - Evo-Stik Premier Division

Saturday 29th January 2011
Evo-Stik Premier Division at Cannon Park, Retford

Worksop Town (0) 1
Chris Bettney 47
Ossett Town (3) 4
Dan Facey 21, 30, Nathan Kemp 43, 61

Admission Season Ticket, Programme £2,
Free Team sheet, Attendance 261
Eleven days ago Ossett Town were beaten 8-1 by FC Halifax Town, champions elect of the Evo-Stik Premier division.
In fact scrap that, there's no 'elect' about it, they're not catchable now and are already champions anyway, bar having their blue and white ribbons tied to the League trophy.
So Ossett went out and bought in a few new faces and set about turning their season around ... but still as relegation contenders, you'd have expected them to have been easily beaten by Worksop today, who are virtually unrecognisable from the team who were locking horns with today's visitors in a relegation battle last season.
Cover photo credit - Jon Knight
Action shot from Retford United v Worksop Town Under 19's

Both sides started tentatively on a sticky pitch and just when it looked as if the Tigers were going to force the issue and take the game by the scruff of the neck, Ossett took the lead.
A free kick pumped hopefully into the box caused chaos ... the ball fell to Dan Facey who opened the scoring from close range, cue stunned silence from the home crowd.
The ball bypasses Worksop's midfield (again)

Nine minutes later, another ball into the box was dropped by Jon Kennedy and Facey was on hand to knock in his second goal.
Cue more stunned silence and a couple of stray twitch weeds blowing across the pitch.
With half time approaching fast, everybody was saying how Martin McIntosh would get stuck into the players and turn the two goal deficit around during the break ... err, hang on, still two minutes on the watch until then and another defensive mess was ceased on by Nathan Kemp to put the Yorkshire side three goals in front.
Cue mass consternation in the ranks and an exodus to the bar.
Straight from the restart Worksop attacked. Chris Bettney hit home a sublime free kick from out on the left and the Tigers were back on 47 minutes ... albeit very briefly, but then they reverted to type as per their first half embarrassing public demonstration of ineptitude and stray passes.
Just after the hour, Kemp ran into the box unchallenged, took the ball wide of Kennedy and fired home the fourth and final (nail in the Tigers coffin) goal for Ossett.
Ray Lucas cheerily writing the official match report

With ten minutes still to go, a lot of Tigers fans just gave up and left. The car park was half empty when I left after the final whistle.
Today Ossett were well worth their victory ... and Worksop, well, with the exception of Chris Wood, they should be ashamed to pick up their wages for their part in this shambles.
A few of them went into hiding today and it's difficult to do that un-noticed while you are wearing a bright tangerine shirt under floodlights ... the guilty parties know who they are and so do those who had paid to watch this no show.
Next week Worksop have a trek over to North Wales to face second placed Colwyn Bay in what'll be a real tester for them. It remains to be seen if they have the resolve inside them to knuckle down and regain the form they had been showing recently.
Today ... they were lazy at times and lacked focus at others.
Complacency and shoulder shrugging were order of the day and it seemed to me they thought they only had to turn up and were entitled to win.
Ossett Town gave them a harsh lesson that they'll hopefully learn from.
For their part Ossett showed what could be achieved through being organised, hard working and concentrating on the job in hand.