Retford United 0 v Dronfield Town 2 - PSF

Tuesday 31st July 2018
Pre Season Friendly
at Cannon Park
Retford United (0) 0
Dronfield Town (0) 2
Josh Gibson 55
Sam Bebbington 66
Admission £4
Point and hope photos on this blog report by me.
For some proper photos by Jon Knight click HERE

Lock up your daughters!
The Sunshine Club mini bus has arrived.

The night bus service from my regularly frequented north London after hours haunts, back to the usual hotel of choice (near Moorgate tube station), have quite a lot in common, frequency wise at least; with my recent visits to Cannon Park.
Inasmuch as they're usually infrequent, and invariably few and far between, and yet, all of a sudden and seemingly out of nowhere, there is a complete deluge of the bloody things, all arriving at once.
And so it came to pass, that I ended up watching Retford United for the fourth time in under a fortnight, with NCEL Division One side: Dronfield Town, providing the opposition tonight.

Chris Millington - looking happy with his lot

Chris Millington's Derbyshire based side will be looking to improve on last season's fourteenth placed finish... and to that end they have been recruiting well, with the additions of: Connor Chappel, Robbie Cuppit, Mike Feraday, Josh Gibson and re-additions of Tom Carnall and Rich Mintoft to their ranks, and on the face of it, there is every chance that they'll feature more prominently in the top half of the table next season, at the very least.
On this showing, they looked fit, strong, ready and raring to go, when their 2018-19 season will begin, with a home game against Campion on Saturday. They're definitely going to be worth having a few more coats of looking at on my travels over the course of the coming term.

Some rough lads from Worksop came too!

United's league campaign also begins at the weekend, when Collingham FC are the visitors to Cannon Park, in a Central Midlands League North fixture.
It will be the first time that the Badgers have started a campaign at such a lowly level of the football pyramid, since they won promotion to the NCEL Div 1 in 2004... and for a while were punching above their weight in the EvoStik Northern Premier League (2007-2011), before dropping back into the NCEL.

Having fallen on some hard times in recent years, United have hit rock bottom over the last couple of campaigns, suffering back to back relegations, whilst finishing in last place for two consecutive seasons, hence they find themselves back in the CMFL, where they will be hoping to repeat the considerable success that they enjoyed during their previous spell in the step 7 league.
Both teams have one more friendly game apiece to go this week, by way of a rehearsal for their respective curtain calls at the weekend, with Dronfield entertaining Woodseats Club, while Retford travel to newly promoted NCEL club Harworth Colliery on Thursday night.

With a new chairman, new investment, and a crack in the clouds offering a ray of sunshine and hope, along with the new found aura of cautious optimism permeating the air at Cannon Park, in place of the dark clouds that have hung over the place for so long, accompanied by an ever increasing kettle of vultures circling on high above the ground, waiting for a carcass to strip the last remaining bits of flesh off of; expectations are high.

Well, as high as any staunchly loyal but pragmatic realist, will ever allow themselves to get.
Especially when they have witnessed first hand, several times over, a whole load of previous new dawns and short lived fresh/false starts, that emanated out of nowhere, all phoenix like, only to burn down to the ground and vanish in a puff of smoke, before turning to ashes, that ultimately got blown away in the storms of yet another winter of discontent,

The winds of change have been battering the hordes of well meaning people at Cannon Park for years... and it must be said, a few unscrupulous bastards along the way too.
Not many of those enforced changes have been for the better, but, in the main, the more recent ones appear to be the first steps towards salvaging this shipwreck of a club, getting it afloat and steering it in the right direction again.
It is to be hoped, that those who are holding the purse-strings this time round, show a measure of prudence with the budget that they now have available to them and don't fall into the same trap that was a forerunner to their demise and unchecked downward spiral, when they adopted a 'live now, pay later' policy and demonstrated that they had about as much financial nous and common sense as Viv Nicholson on a 'spend, spend, spending' spree.

However, I'm sure, well as sure as I possibly can be, that the powers that be at Retford United are fully aware of the ramifications of the old adage: "Those who don't learn from the mistakes of history are doomed to repeat them", even though it is fairly obvious, that even in local step 7 circles, if you want to sign the calibre of players who will be challenging for promotion come the end of the season, then they aren't exactly going to turn out for a few quid towards their petrol expenses and a fiscal reward of next to 'nowt.

By the way... that really wasn't a grammatical faux pas on my part, that you might have spotted above; the collective noun for a flock/group of vultures actually is a kettle.
Tonight's final outcome was a fair result in my humble opinion, as a strong Dronfield provided their hosts with a competitive and physical challenge.
But anyway,on with the show...
Craig Mitchell started at left back for the Badgers, meaning that Liam Bennett, who has been impressive for United throughout pre-season, moved inside to fill a central defensive berth, with Dean Smith, who put in a towering shift against Denaby Main at the weekend, starting the night on the subs bench.

Apart from filling in as a goalkeeper and playing centre forward (I'm sure that there is still time yet), Bennett has seemingly covered every blade of grass on the Cannon Park pitch for the Badgers first team and development side these past couple of seasons.
Almost straight from kick off, Mark Fereday went close to giving Dronfield the lead, but Liam Copley got an early touch, when he made a save with his feet... they all count!
Cory Goodwin instigated the home side's first attack, forcing a corner off of Robbie Cuppit, that he took himself, finding Bennett on the edge of the area, whose shot was charged down by Stuart Hill, the visitors captain.

Ash Rawson advanced into the Badgers penalty area, but his route to goal was blocked by Craig Mitchell, who cleared the ball away at the expense of a corner, from which Connor Chappell's delivery towards the near post was cleared out of harm's way by Callum Douglas.
Jack Walter's was fouled as he approached the right hand edge of the visitors area and Hill had to move swiftly to whipped the ball away from Bennett as he pounced on Goodwin's delivery into the six yard box.
Mitchell... I kid you not! Went on a mazy dribble deep into the Dronfield half, that was more messy than Messi, but effective nonetheless and as a consequence of his improvised run, the ball found it's way through to Ben Castell, who skimmed a shot just over the bar from fifteen yards.

With half time approaching, Goodwin was unlucky not to get on the end of a through ball from Walters, while Copley got his fingertips to a stinging long distance shot by Matty Ord and managed to make enough contact to see the ball crash back off of the left hand upright.
HT: 0 - 0
The hosts started the second half in a lively fashion, but Dronfield were tightening things up at the back, restricting United to long range efforts and beginning to show their teeth with no small amount of both menace and intent.
Mitchell took a short throw to Goodwin out on the right and having taken a quick return pass in his stride swung in a curling shot towars the back post that dropped just wide, with Lew Naylor unsighted until late. What a goal that would've been if only Mitchell's trickery had paid off.

Christ knows what 'Disco' has been doing in
hospitality to get the windows in that state

Joe McGuinness saw his shot from outside the visitors area charged down, but Goodwin chased the ball down on the right hand side of the area and crossed it back towards Walters who caught it crisply on the half volley but saw his shot fly wide and just off target.
But in spite of Retford's spirited application inside their guests half, Dronfield had securely bolted their back doors closed and began to turn the screw deep inside the Badgers territory.
A quick burst forward by Callum Mawby, saw him clean through, one against one with Copley, who did really well to make a last ditch block and turn the ball round his post.
Mawby took the resulting corner, which found it's way through to Josh Gibson, who bulged the back of the net with an uncompromising thumping shot from twelve yards out.

The visitors doubled their lead when Sam Bebbington shot home through a crowd of bodies from almost exactly the same spot that Gibson had opened the scoring from, but might have trouble claiming the goal given the spelling howler as regards his name on the team line ups board.

Dronfield still had plenty left in their tanks as they pushed forward with a late flurry, looking to kill the game off and complete a good night's work.

Copley was forced to run out of his area to meet Mark Fereday as he charged forward, but when the visitors number ten tried to nudge the ball past the former Armthorpe keeper and continue his run, Copley had denied him just long enough for Bennett to get back and making a timely interception.

Copley was in action once again, in the closing exchanges, as he held onto a long range and well struck effort by Connor Chappell.

And that was that. Game over.

FT: Retford United 0 v Dronfield Town 2

Of course, there is an added edge to local football matters in the people's republic of East Retford this coming season, because it will be the first time since 1985, when Retford Town and Retford Rail both competed against each other in the NCEL Division One South, that two teams from the town will go head to head, at the same level, against each other, with Retford FC and Retford United both amongst the fancied clubs to do well in the CMFL North. 

The first ever scheduled competitive fixture between the two sides will take place on Friday 16th November 2019 at Cannon Park, with the reverse game being played at the Rail Ground on Babworth Road on Friday 15th March 2019. I think that it is safe to say that both clubs will get their highest attendance of the season on those respective dates, when the Badgers lock horns with the Choughs, metaphorically speaking of course, because everybody knows that neither species actually has horns... Badgers have fins so that they can breathe underwater, while Choughs have antlers to fend off attackers and everything that you read on the internet is always true.