Kiveton Park 1 v Harworth Colliery Institute 2 - CMFL North

Saturday 1st December 2012, at Hard Lane, Kiveton
Central Midlands League North, 2pm Kick Off
Kiveton Park  (1) 1
James Cregan 41
Harworth Colliery Institute  (2) 2
James Woodward 3, Lee Edmondson 39
Admission £3, Programme £1

This afternoon's 2-1 victory, made it seven straight wins in a row for Harworth Colliery :-)

Wot! No dug out?

A great start for Harworth this afternoon, when Tom Padgett knocked a great ball over the top of the visitors defence inside the first three minutes, for James Woodward to run onto and open the scoring from ten yards out.
Craig Anderson nearly doubled the visitors lead shortly afterwards, but his angled shot across the face of Kivo's goal went narrowly wide of the left hand post, after Chris Belshaw had surged into the area (or paddled his way through the gooey mess, to be more precise) and found 'Billy' with a defence splitting pass.

But as the Colliery side already know, Kiveton have a habit of doing well against them (see here: Harworth CI v Kiveton Park 04.09.2012 ) and the home side were nearly on level terms when Dan Harrison headed narrowly wide, after Jordan Cocks had broke free on the left flank and put in a telling cross. 

As the old saying goes: beware of slippery Cocks on muddy fields ... or summat like that.

Kiveton's goalkeeper Jon Parker made hard work of gathering a left wing corner from Chris Belshaw and spilled the loose ball into the path of Tom Padgett, who put the ball over the crossbar from five yards out.
The wet ball and difficult surface, contributed greatly to both errors.
Padgett came close again, when he got his head onto Tom Walker's free kick, but he flicked the ball narrowly wide.
Evidently, Harworth could remember how this resilient 'Kivo' side had turned them over with a late comeback earlier in the season, at Scrooby Road ... and they were trying to rack up a few goals before the interval.
Alas, their first half dominance didn't reap the rewards it warranted.

But on 39 minutes, Lee Edmondson decided to take matters into his own hands and after picking the ball up in the middle of the park, he ran a full forty yards, before keeping his feet in the glue pot of a goal mouth and netting Harworth's second, to give them the security of a two goal cushion.
However, that 'security' was short lived.
And after three failed attempts by Harworth's rearguard to clear a corner, the ball ran loose to James Gregan just outside the 18 yard box and he floated it over the crowd of bodies in the visitors area and into the back of the net.
As Harworth set off on the lengthy route march back to the dressing rooms at half time, they must've been disappointed to only be one game in front and they will have known, that with the bright sun setting low at the railway end of the ground, it was going to be difficult for Mark Latham and his defence to pick out and defend against any direct balls into the area after the break.
I dare say Kiveton were well aware of that too.
HT - Kiveton Park 1 v Harworth CI 2

Sure enough, almost straight from the restart, James Lawton tried to catch out Mark Latham with a long range snap shot, but the Harworth keeper managed to save it a full stretch.
Play switched to the other end and Chris Belshaw's shot flew wide of the target as Kiveton began to leave a few spaces at the back as they committed men forward to overturn the single goal deficit.
Cocks penetrated a hole in the Harworth box (yeah, go on, you try spotting the line I was challenged to try fitting into this match overview) and in the scramble to clear the ball, David Cornthwaite got stuck in the mud and twisted his knee badly.
He was able to carry on for a while, but was obviously in a lot of pain and had to be withdrawn shortly afterwards.
After waiting patiently to get a regular place in the starting line up, David's been playing really well of late, completely justifying his first team selection, so the timing of his injury will compound the pain he was obviously in.
Hope you're on the road to recovery soon Cornie.

Harworth's players, for whatever reason, seemed to collectively switch off for a while; their body language looked all wrong and they were seemingly reluctant to risk any further injuries on the 'sticky wicket'.
Kiveton picked up on this and began to make some serious in roads in the final third of the pitch.
Park's captain Carl Longmore, was a thorn in Harworth's side when the two sides met last time and he was a bloody hand full again this afternoon too.
Ben Carless, on as a sub for 'Kivo', played a great through ball into the path of Longmore, but thankfully for the visitors back four, he couldn't quite get the ball under control and he skied it, harmlessly high and wide of the left hand upright.
Phew!
A few minutes later, Longmore was back again, but this time he knocked the ball wide of the other side of Mark Latham's goal instead.
I'm sure Mark had it covered anyway ;-)

This would've been a great time to get a blackmail material photograph of the agonised expressions on the faces of the Harworth management team and their Victor Meldrew style ranting and raving ... if only somebody had taken a camera along to Hard Lane with them today, eh lads!? ;-)
Craig Anderson, having literally run himself into the ground this afternoon, also had to come off in the last ten minutes as Harworth rolled up their sleeves and made one last big push to cling on to three very hard won points.
In the dying minutes, Tom Padgett was unlucky not to make the score 3-1 to the visitors. But, for their efforts in the second half, the home side probably didn't deserve to lose by such a convincing margin anyway.
In fact, if truth be told, if anything, a draw would've been a fair result.

Because, although Harworth had done enough to be out of sight by half time, they were well and truly bogged down in the mud after the restart.
But three points is three points and after sparking back into life and rallying late on, well done to Harworth, for keeping 'Kivo' at bay in the second half and hanging on until the bitter end, to keep the winning run going.
THE66POW man of the match: I know it's a team game and everybody did their bit. But, I'm giving it to Tom Padgett, who worked his socks off all afternoon.
And Lee Edmondson deserved a honourable mention this afternoon too.

 

Next up:
Tuesday 4th December 2012, 7.45pm, Harworth Colliery Institute v Yorkshire Main, CMFL North Floodlit Cup (rearranged game). At Scrooby Road, DN11 8JT