Thursday 21st November 2019
Worksop Van Hire North Midland U21 LeagueRetford (1) 3
Callum Wilson 23, 70
Kris Scott 85 pen
Handsworth (0) 2
Callum Walton 59,
Owen Darwent 86
To read Rich Williams' detailed match report from the Retford FC website: click HERE
Adam Hicks, Will Hunter, Myles Cassidy, Olly Presley, Reuben Brewin-Hawkins, Kian Goodall, Dalton Sikhosana, Kris Scott, Callum Wilson, Luke Abdy, Owen Clarke.
Subs - Louis Hubner, George Hudson, Ethan Cowan.
Handsworth:
James Gamble. Maxim Hague, Ellis Moore, Callum Geelan, Ethan Hobson, Joe Parkin, Callum Walton, Jack Charlesworth, Rene Marsden, Mohamed Saeed, Ryan Dixon.
Subs - Ellis B. Moore, Owen Darwent, Ricky Hall, Alex Stacey, Laurence Ward.
An under-strength Retford side, beat the current league leaders, reigning champions (and most likely champions-elect too) Handsworth, in this WVH North Midland U21 Development League fixture, under the lights at the Rail Ground. And in doing so, a few of their mix and match line-up possibly pushed their selection claims, while filling in for their AWOL colleagues, into the bargain too.
With all due respect to everyone involved with the Babworth Road outfit, this was a result that I hadn't envisaged in advance... not by any stretch of my far-flung imagination whatsoever.
To be perfectly honest, if I hadn't have been present to witness what unfolded, with my own eyes, I'd probably have suspected that whoever inputs the results on the league website, was guilty of inserting a typo, when I had a look to check out the results later on tonight.
During the early exchanges, which almost had an air of inevitably about them, the visitors appeared to be playing a game of cat and mouse with their hosts, waiting for the opportunity to pounce, before striding on towards claiming yet another scalp.
But football doesn't always stick to any kind of script and a hard-working Choughs defence, having displayed a whole lot of tenacity, togetherness and hard graft, were rewarded for their rearguard efforts in the twenty-third minute, when Callum Wilson exploited a momentary gap through the middle of the Ambers backline and took his chance to beat James Gamble from fifteen yards out with a quality strike
The opening goal provoked the kind of reaction from the visitors that you'd expect when poking a bees nest with a stick, while wearing just a pair of Speedos and a coating of honey... but though Retford rode their luck a couple of times, they were still that single goal in front at half time, even though Handsworth had hit the post and stretched their hosts, almost to breaking point, a couple of times.
After the restart, a rampant Handsworth side was straight on the front foot, hunting for the goals that had proved elusive thus far. On any other given night, but for the defensive prowess of Reuben Brewin-Hawkins, the positional awareness of Adam Hicks and an unwanted portion of bad fortune, Rene Marsden would already have been on a hat-trick, before Ryan Dixon rounded the Choughs keeper and miskicked into the side netting with the goal at his mercy.
Retford continued to repel a wave of Ambers attacks, but just before the hour mark, Callum Walton moved the ball along the edge of the home sides area, to make himself enough room to pick his spot and level the game up. It had been coming.
Oh well, it had been good while it lasted. But with everyone expecting Handsworth to take control of the game from here on in, Callum Wilson got onto the end of a defence-splitting pass from Owen Clarke and left Gamble grasping at thin air again as, against all the odds, the home side were in front for the second time.
Having just set up one goal, Clarke was involved again, when he was tripped just inside the Handsworth area, which afforded Kris Scott with the opportunity to increase Retford's lead from the penalty spot.
As the Choughs gave themselves a two-goal cushion, with under five minutes of the game remaining, Handsworth were reduced to ten men, when Ethan Hobson became the first-ever player to be sin-binned during a game featured on this here blog, for talking out of turn to the referee, in response to the penalty award. Which effectively ruled him out of the remainder of the game.
Moments after Hobson left the pitch, the Ambers broke forward quickly and Owen Darwent nipped in between Hicks and Will Hunter, who lost his footing, to lift the ball over the advancing Retford number one, to set up a grandstand finish to the game.
But the hosts dug in and held onto their hard-won three points.
FT: Retford U21 3 v Handsworth U21 2
