Harworth Colliery Institute 5 v Sherwood Colliery 2 - CMFL North

Brendan Wilson, Harworth CI 1st team manager

Tuesday 21st August 2012, at Scrooby Road, Bircotes
Central Midlands League (North)
Harworth Colliery Institute (2) 5
Gareth Sides (pen) 1,
Chris Belshaw 6, 88,
Lee Edmundson 62
Craig Anderson 87
Sherwood Colliery (0) 2
Jack Wood 73,
James Whitmore 77
Admission £3, Programme £1
With just 15 seconds of the game gone, the visitors conceded a penalty, when Lee Edmondson was upended by the Sherwood keeper James Rice in the box.
Rice who had been left woefully exposed by some sloppy defending and an alarming back pass, was fortunate to be shown a yellow card instead of a red.

Gaz Sides duly converted the spot kick and Harworth were in front right from the word go.

Ready? Aim ...

Fire! Gaz Sides opens the scoring from the penalty spot

After 6 minutes, Chris Belshaw danced around three lightweight defensive challenges and put the home side two goals in front and it was already evident that Sherwood were going to be struggling to get anything out of tonight's game.

Harworth had a few chances to finish the game off during a cat and mouse first half, but the Sherwood defence had managed to clear their lines and when half time came they had managed to keep the score down to 2-0.
It always looked as though Harworth had more goals in them, but they didn't add to their tally until the 62nd minute when Lee Edmondson slotted the ball underneath the outstretched James Rice, who did his best to keep the ball out and must've been getting sick and tired of the sight of Edmondson by now.

Unexpectedly, Sherwood Colliery suddenly decided to make a game of it and for a short while they caught Harworth with their guard down when Jack Wood beat Mark Latham from 25 yards home and James Whitmore headed home from a left wing cross, both within the space of four minutes.
The unexpected turn of events, now meant that it was well and truly 'game on' as Sherwood grew in confidence.
Two Harworth goals inside the last three minutes, finally stubbed out Sherwood's hopes of a comeback.
Craig Anderson crashed the ball home off the underside of the crossbar, taking advantage when the visitors had made hard work of clearing a corner and Chris Belshaw added the fifth a minute later after accelerating into the left hand side of the box.
Despite letting five goals in, Sherwood are starting to adjust to life in the CMFL and they looked like a decent side for a while during the second half, but Harworth, who were good value for their win tonight, have won their first three games (and would've won at Brodsworth last week too, when the floodlights failed causing the game to be abandoned), have set off at a cracking pace this season.
Long may it continue.

Sub 3 for Harworth was actually Matt Smith

The Scrooby Road side are amongst five CMFL North teams who still have 100% win ratio.
The others are Clay Cross Town, AFC Mansfield, Ollerton Town and Easington United.
Though that would've changed tonight, but Ollerton Town v AFC Mansfield was abandoned at half time due to a floodlight failure, with the Bulls leading 2-0.

FT - Harworth Colliery 5 v Sherwood Colliery 2
Special mention tonight, to the new look Harworth CI programme, which is greatly improved this season and credit is due to the editor Simon Stones for making such a decent job of putting it together.