Alfreton Town Football Club

Match reports
2005/06
season

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2005/06 season match No.18
Nationwide North
Tuesday, November 15th, 2005
Barrow AFC 2, Alfreton Town 2
Match report by Gordon Foster (Mansfield CHAD).

ALFRETON Town are rapidly becoming one of the Conference North’s draw specialists after gaining a useful point from their sixth league draw of the season at Holker Street on Tuesday night.
But assistant boss Darron Gee was disappointed not to have taken all three points.
“We’ve done very well overall,” he reflected afterwards, “but after going a goal ahead early on we gave away two sloppy goals.
“We rolled our sleeves up in the second half and were magnificent. We deserved the point, and I’m disappointed it wan’t all three, but if we keep on believing we can do it we will.”
The single point, achieved 36 years to the day after the first of four matches in that historic cup tie against the Bluebirds who were then a Division Three side, was not enough to lift the Reds out of the relegation zone.
But the second half performance at least gave hope that their sojourn in that area would not be a long one.
Peter Duffield got the Reds off to a dream start with a fourth minute opening goal. Emeka Nwadike launched the move with a pass inside to Matt Fisher. He released the ball forward for Duffield to run on to and finish confidently from the edge of the area.
But Barrow were level five minutes later. The Reds failed to clear their lines from a corner, and in a goalmouth melee with several attempts to clear, the linesman flagged to indicate that the ball had crossed the line, Steve Flitcroft being credited with the goal.
Former Reds trialist James Cotterill, who had been booked two minutes earlier for a foul on Fisher, was lucky to stay on the field in the 13th minute for a cynical foul on Duffield, which earned the defender a long lecture but no second card.
Barrow then embarked on a spell of pressure during which Paul Howarth’s 20-yard curling shot was just wide, but apart from that the Bluebirds did not turn their possession into worthwhile chances.
Alfreton hit back with a fine through ball from the again impressive Clarke which got Jon Stevenson to the by-line, but his pull-back was blocked by Darren Edmondson.
Another typical Stevenson jinking run was halted by Cowan’s challenge on the edge of the area, and Jason Blunt had a great chance from Chris Bettney’s brilliant run and pass, but opted to try to set up Nwadike, and the quality of his pass was poor and gave the midfielder no chance of capitalising.
That miss was punished a minute later, on 40, when Greg Smith failed to cut out Guy Heffernan’s long throw in, leaving Gavin Knight with a simple task.
Alfreton stepped up a gear after the break, and thought they had won a 57th-minute penalty when Cotterill appeared to push Nwadike, but the referee mystified everyone by instead giving the free kick to Barrow.
The Reds did not have it all their own way though, and Smith had to go down well to hold Knight’s angled drive.
But Duffield saw a superb diving header onto Bettney’s cross saved, then tried a deft 18-yard chip which went just too high while another 25-yarder was equally narrowly wide.
In between, a typically strong forward run by Clarke won a corner off Chris Taylor, while 10 minutes from time, as Alfreton pushed forward, substitute Chris White made ground into the area but saw his shot saved.
Even so, the match might have been put beyond the Reds four minutes from time, when Knight cut in and brought a tremendous parry out of Smith, with Mark Turner tidying up.
And two minutes later Turner popped up at the front end to score a deserved equaliser.
Player-manager Gary Mills, on for Nwadike, played a brilliant free kick from 10 yards inside the Barrow half into the six-yard box, from where the waiting Turner forced the ball over the line at the second attempt.
MATCH DETAILS
BARROW: Bishop, Heffernan, Maxfield, Edmondson, Cotterill, Cowan, Flitcroft, Taylor (Hill 82), Tarrant (Kewley 67), Knight, Howarth. Subs not used: Rushton, Salmon, Swarbrick.
ALFRETON: Smith, Clarke, Featherstone, Robinson, Turner, Nwadike (Mills 60), Blunt (White 79), Fisher, Duffield, Stevenson (Ross 79), Bettney. Subs not used: Bodkin, Tasker.
REFEREE: D. Handley of Wigan. ATT: 755.
SCORERS: Barrow - Steve Flitcroft 9; Gavin Knight 40. Alfreton - Peter Duffield 4; Mark Turner 88.
CAUTIONS: Barrow - Cotterill 11 (foul on Fisher). Alfreton - Nwadike 58 (foul on Cowan).
MAN OF THE MATCH: Ryan Clarke.