at Station Road, Collingham
Central Midlands League South, Floodlit Cup
Newark Town (4) 5
Sam Bagworth 50 seconds
Chris Self 16, 36
Dom Swingler 31
Chris Dobbie 80
Blackwell Miners Welfare (1) 1
Oliver Shelton 17
Admission £3 inc. programme, Attendance 63
Temperature - the climate is starting to get silly now :-O
I hope you got some comfort and much needed distraction out of Newark Town's performance tonight.
Look after yourself mate.
Tonight, their line up was virtually unrecognisable from the one that started that particular game, as a large proportion of Newark's reserve team were given the chance to shine.
Newark Town currently top the CMFL South, with an impressive 39 points, while their reserve side are sitting in fourth place in the CU Phosco Lighting Reserve Premier Division, just three points behind the league leaders Belper Town.
Blackwell are struggling along in the bottom 3 of the CMFL South, after what was a traumatic close season for the club, that very nearly saw them fold altogether.
I gleaned this information from the excellent match programme, which I had ample time to read, given that the visiting team arrived slightly late and the guy with their kit arrived even later.
But they serve a decent pint in the clubhouse at Collingham and it's always good to spend time in the company of David Hurstfield and Richard Lane who are great ambassadors for Newark Town Football Club.
We agreed to disagree about what the outcome of the forthcoming Mansfield Town v Lincoln City, FA Cup 2nd Round replay will be (the winner will play at home against Liverpool in the 3rd Round), but we were both in complete agreement about the how 'fit' the young lady in a really tight t-shirt, who was appearing live on the TV screen in the clubhouse, running on a treadmill, looked.
I don't know which nonentities ESPN are planning wheel out, to summarise on the Stags v Imps replay, when it's shown live on TV on the 12th December, but Mr Murphy is the guy they really need to keep the viewers entertained.
With just five minutes on the watch, Leigh Hardy upended Sam Bagworth inside the penalty area and the referee Darren Tingle, had no hesitation in pointing to the spot.
Chris Self hit the resulting penalty low, hard and on target, but Matt Foster got down well to block the shot and then recovered in time to claim the ball before any of the Newark players charging into the box could score off the rebound.
Ricky North powered a header just wide of the upright inside the first fifteen minutes and Blackwell breathed a collective sigh of relief, that they weren't already three goals down.
It could quite easily have been four - nil already and it looked as if a rout was on the cards, but to everyone's surprise (including their own, I would have thought), a minute after going two behind, the Welfare side grabbed a goal back.
Newark made hard work of clearing a pass into their box by Channon Davis and when the ball fell to Oliver Shelton, he slotted the ball home under the body of Newark's keeper Tom Loveless as he dived to his right.
But the home side soon picked up the tempo again and on the half hour mark, a right wing cross by right back Sam Gregory was flicked past Matt Foster and into the net, via the deftest of touches by Dom Swingler.
However, Swingler was soon back in the visitors area and in the thirty sixth minute, he put over a precision cross to Chris Self, who added his second goal and Newark's fourth.
With the temperature starting to plummet, even the most neutral of onlookers would've been pleased to see that one go in, meaning the game was virtually out of Blackwell's reach and the possibility of the game now going into extra time, fell somewhere in between minuscule and non existent.
HT - Newark Town 4 v Blackwell Miners Welafre 1
Somebody stood within earshot of me opined that the second half was now just about running about to keep warm until the referee blew the whistle.
Sure their was still plenty of honest endeavour on display, but I don't ever recall hearing a linesman being asked 'how long is left now?' quite so frequently before.
Both teams gave their substitutes a run out and it was two players who'd been introduced from Newark's bench, who combined for the final goal of the night, when Danny Purves defence splitting pass put Chris Dobbie through and the Blues number 15 drilled the ball into the back of the net on 80 minutes.
There was certainly no way back for Blackwell now ... and Newark Town march on to the next round, of this prestigious competition.
FT - Newark Town 5 v Blackwell Miners Welfare 1
On the way home, I discovered what happens when somebody arrives at Dunham Toll Bridge without any money.
With the westbound side down to a single lane, the last thing those of us queueing behind a foreign lorry needed to hear, was that he was going nowhere until he paid, because there was no way all of us could've reversed out of his way while he manoeuvred backwards.
Thankfully, an angry looking man worked his way along the captive line of cars uttering 'pleasantries' along the lines of "This French C*** hasn't got enough English money to go anywhere, have you got any spare change so we can get the w***** moving on?". Eventually and reluctantly, enough people chipped in and we were able to follow the 'popular' lorry driver from Calais, all the way to Markham Moor roundabout at an agonisingly slow pace, until he thankfully buggered off up the A1 and I could just about get to my planned rendezvous in Retford with my good lady (my bad one was busy tonight) with seconds to spare.
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| The last minute of the game, viewed from inside the warmth of my car. |
Next up: I suspect the weather is going to cut a large slice out of the forthcoming football fixtures calendar, so I might not be going anywhere very exciting any time soon.
