Tuesday 10th January, at DennyfieldBaris NCEL League Cup 3rd Round
Thackley (4) 5
Dempsey Smith 3, Mike Garrad 11,
Nicky Matthews 15, 43, Liam Moore 70
Retford United (1) 1
Adam Scott 25
Admission £5, Programme £1 (free team sheet)
Attendance 64 inc. Bradford Park Avenue's kit man
On arrival in Thackley, courtesy of the Beechmeister's wonder tours and a Chelsea pensioner's directions, we discovered that the Retford United team were still on their way and the kick off had been delayed.The party animal in our entourage, who has recently rediscovered his second flush of youth, didn't waste a second and marched towards the bar shouting 'Get the beers in ladies, the love monster is in the house' (or similar), while our anorak wearing Groundhopper bloke wandered off to take pictures of signs and search out a programme and team sheet. The sad git no doubt worked out where the teams came out onto the pitch too and would be in exactly in the right place to take a picture of the pre match handshake.
Thackley 'Arsenal-esque' v Retford United, all yellow.
Thackley have a very well appointed stand that comfortably seats 300, but we chose to stand behind the goal Retford would be attacking in the first half and subsequently only had a long distance view of the majority of the action.
Soon afterwards Mike Garrad headed home a left wing cross and before Retford had even warmed up properly, Nicky Matthews had put the Dennyboys into a commanding three goal lead with just fifteen minutes on the clock.
Retford could point to the number of players they had unavailable for tonight, their late arrival at Dennyfield and the truncated pre match warm up, as contributing factors for their lacklustre start, but I'm sure they wouldn't want to be accused of making excuses.
Quite simply, Thackley were more up for it, showed more desire, were the better team on the night and deserved to be three up from a flying start.
The Badgers kicked off at approximately 7.55pm & 7.58pm & 8.06pm & 8.10pm ... if their mini bus driver had struggled for a place to park, there was plenty of space to be had all across United's back four.
Slightly lopsided but free team sheet, left click to enlarge image
Dempsey Smith started the ball rolling from the first attack of the match, when he fired home from the right hand side of the six yard box.Soon afterwards Mike Garrad headed home a left wing cross and before Retford had even warmed up properly, Nicky Matthews had put the Dennyboys into a commanding three goal lead with just fifteen minutes on the clock.
Retford could point to the number of players they had unavailable for tonight, their late arrival at Dennyfield and the truncated pre match warm up, as contributing factors for their lacklustre start, but I'm sure they wouldn't want to be accused of making excuses.
Quite simply, Thackley were more up for it, showed more desire, were the better team on the night and deserved to be three up from a flying start.
Adam Scott rounded the Thackley keeper Matt Convey to pull a goal back on 25 minutes and for a brief spell it looked as though the visitors might get back into the game and mount a comeback. But after a couple of corners amounted to nothing, they went AWOL again and by half time it was 4-1, when Jason Fisher, the United goalkeeper made hard work of dealing with a cross and the ball fell for Nicky Matthews to put the Dennyboys 4-1 up.Dave Issott did see his effort fly narrowly wide of the Thackley goal just before the break, but Retford attacks were few and far between by now.
The second half was far less eventful.Thackley knew they had the game won and took their foot off the gas, played deep and let Retford, who if truth be told hadn't even found the accelerator all night, try to break them down.
If it was a cricket match, Matt Morgan the Thackley captain could've declared, but it's football, so we still had 45 minutes to get through regardless.
Even though their side was depleted, I had expected more from Retford United tonight.
Too many passes went astray and Thackley had acres of space to play the ball around in.
In his after match quotes for the Retford Times, Brett Marshall the Badgers manager, said he was disgusted with his side's performance and dropped a strong hint that some players might not get picked on Saturday as a consequence of what had happened tonight.
The excitement was all too much for Mr MayfieldThere was still time for Thackley to add a fifth goal in the 70th minute, when substitute Liam Moore charged through a great big gap in the Retford back four and found the net, to make the score and final result 5-1.
In truth Thackley had already won the game inside the first quarter of an hour ... and both teams got what they deserved from their input into tonight's game.
Next up - Matlock Town v Frickley Athletic, in the Evo-Stik Northern Premier League, League Cup, AKA Doodson Sport Cup, tomorrow night.
