Harworth Colliery Institute U19 4 v Sandiacre Town U19 1 - NMU19L Div 2

Thursday 8th November 2012,

at Stad de la Scrooby Road, Bircotes, DN11 8JT

North Midland U19 League Division 2

HARWORTH COLLIERY INSTITUTE (1) 4

Callum Tiffany 19, Lewis Elwood 79,

Daine McGrain 84, 85

SANDIACRE TOWN U19 (1) 1

Jack Makepeace 4

Admission £2, Programme £1, 

Attendance nowhere near enough

Harworth Colliery line up, see above.
Double substitution Lewis Elwood and Connor Gresham, on for Danny Siddall and Tom Sowden after 59 minutes and Ben Thompson replaced Mitchell Lax on 73 minutes
Sandiacre Town:
Charlie Switherbank, Steve Fisher, Jack Prentice, Jason Palmer, Ben Wheatley, Tom Dodsworth (Greg Hewes), Ollie Cuomo, Farai Kanyisai, Jack Makepeace, Reece Clutterbuck Allen, Jordan Newton (Jow McGlynn)

A disastrous start for Harworth, saw Jack Makepeace latch onto an attempted clearance, after just four minutes, to fire Sandiacre in front.
Tonight's teams were a bit of an unknown quantity to each other and some of the opening exchanges were a bit tentative and cagey, to say the least.
Callum Tiffany, hardly the tallest player on the pitch, equalised when timed his run perfectly into the visitors six yard box, to power home a header from Enzo Guarini's right wing free kick.
Soon afterwards, Daine McGrain unselfishly laid a short pass off to Danny Siddall inside the Sandiacre area, but the Harworth winger fired narrowly wide.
Mitchell Lax then replicated the trajectory of Siddall's effort and knocked the ball just wide of the post too.
Daine McGrain seized on to an opportunity on the edge of the box after Sandiacre's defence had only half cleared a Luke Bailey cross, but the usually prolific striker knocked the ball just over the crossbar.
On the half hour, Sandiacre's impressive looking playmaker Farai Kanyisai, made a promising looking forward run into the Harworth half, but Callum Tiffany had tracked back and put in a sublime tackle to abruptly interrupt the Saints attacking intentions.
Daine McGrain made a diagonal run across the face of the visitors defence, found himself a yard of space and let fly with a shot from 20 yards out, but the ball went high and wide of the target.
Just before the break, Mitchell Lax tried his luck with a thumping effort from 18 yards out.
 Thankfully there was nobody playing on the skateboard ramp that is adjacent to the ground ... and the posh match-ball was eventually retrieved too.
HT - Harworth Colliery 1 v Sandiacre Town 1

Sandiacre looked to be a very good side, particularly going forward.
But towards the end of the game, they brought back memories of the Harworth U19's side of a few years ago, as in so much as they played very well up until about the 80th minute and were the better team for a couple of spells during the second half, but they lost the way a bit after that ... and the Colliery side, ruthlessly took advantage of the visitors losing a bit of focus and falling off the pace of the game in the last ten minutes.
Daine McGrain made his intentions clear on 75 minutes, when he hit a screamer of a shot from just inside the Saints area, Charlie Switherbank showed great agility and somehow managed to keep the ball out.
On 79 minutes, Luke Bailey swung the ball into the visitors six yard box and Lewis Elwood fired home from close range.
On 84 minutes, Connor Gresham, showed he could distribute the ball precisely, when he drilled a pass from midfield into the path of Daine McGrain, who ran forward into the visitors box, used his strength to hold off a challenge and put Harworth 3-1 in front.
Within a minute, Connor Gresham's goal bound effort was blocked by Charlie Switherbank, but Daine McGrain was on hand to knock home the rebound.

The 4-1 margin of victory tonight, possibly flattered the home side slightly and the visitors didn't really deserve to be on the wrong end of a drubbing after they had put in so much effort.
But, in lieu of all the times over the past few years, when the shoe was on the other foot and Harworth lost out late in numerous games that they had done well in for 80 minutes or so ... never mind eh!?
The Colliery side have learned from the experience and now it's up to Sandiacre to get to grips with an obvious Achilles heel too.
Sandiacre gave a good account of themselves tonight, but Harworth stayed sharp, alert and on the ball for the entire 90 minutes and as a consequence finished the night in second place in the table, level on points with league leaders Ollerton Town.

LEFT CLICK IMAGE FOR ENLARGED VERSION

Tonight, patience really was a virtue and Harworth took their chances when they eventually came along, after an inspired intervention by Glenn McPherson who used the substitute options that were available to him well.
And that's the very last time I'm ever letting Glenn have any input into reporting about how he performed.
THE66POW man of the match:
Football is a team game and I don't usually single out any individual player for praise, but tonight, in my humble opinion, I saw the best game I've ever seen Callum Tiffany play for Harworth, so he gets the nod from me.