2005/06 season match No.52
Saturday, April 29th, 2006
Nationwide North
Alfreton Town 1, Gainsborough Trinity 2
Match report by Clive Edwards. Pics by Phil Lucic to follow.

David Robinson (left) in typical action for the last time before announcing his retirement from the game.

This match was Alfreton’s season in miniature. A season of two halves, a game of two halves . . . but in reverse. Alfreton had a shocker of a first half-season, and a pretty decent second half, at home, at least.
Against Gainsborough, they more than matched their opponents in the first half of the game, but in the second, they were outplayed by a side whose midfield took control of the territory. An injured Chris Howard sat and watched the match from the stand. He was the missing ingredient.
As if to give the fans a haunting reminder throughout the summer months of the worst of the Reds’ season, in the final minute of the game Mick Godber managed to get himself sent off for using foul and abusive language. That was virtually the last event of a long season.
The home fans had been hoping that their team’s revival would give them a home victory and some genuine hope that next season would bring the possibility of play-off places. Those hopes took as much of a serious dent from this performance as England fans’ dreams did when the news about Wayne Rooney’s injury filtered through.
Generally, the first half of this match was scrappy. On hard surfaces, Jon Stevenson is usually a class above most others. And so he was here, for much of the first half. On 14 minutes, he took a through ball from Featherstone on his chest, turned, and shot away down the left side. Offside, flagged the linesman, to the relief of the Gainsborough defence. It was a touch-and-go decision.
On the half hour, and against the run of play, slack marking in the home defence enabled Ryan Mallon to collect a low cross from Matty Cauldwell. The Trinity striker turned and fired past Bodkin from ten yards. Gainsborough had the lead, but one always felt that Alfreton would get back in it.
And so it came to pass. A long ball over the defence from Fisher. Stevenson controlled beautifully, and the Gainsborough defence looked to the linesman. No flag. Correct decision. Stevo kept his nerve, let their keeper advance a few paces and bent the ball round him and into the net from the corner of the 18 yard box. It was a gem.
By half time, the balance of play was about 50/50… perhaps Alfreton looking favourites.
But the second half was disappointing. A quarter of an hour after the restart, Gainsborough had two attempts blocked on the line.
Mallon took advantage of a rare error by Robinson before lobbing the ball over the advancing Shaun Bodkin. Emmet Friars somehow managed to head the ball from under the crossbar and out for a corner. Brief relief. Then Richard Pell rifled his corner kick low and hard to the edge of the box. Nick Ellis met it with a left foot volley and the ball whistled goalbound. Gary Mills on near-post duty lunged to his left and just managed to clear from the line.
Alfreton did have the ball in the Gainsborough net –a high cross from Bettney, a challenge from Nwadike and Robinson, but the referee had indicated well before the ball crossed the line that the Trinity keeper, making his debut for the club, had been infringed.
Gainsborough’s winner came in the 82nd minute. Midfielder Wes Parker outjumped everyone to head home a Simon Bird corner. It was simple. And almost identical to the goal conceded at Workington in the previous week. Without Mark Turner in the heart of that defence, one or two questions need to be asked on set pieces.
Bird had come on as substitute for Trinity with ten minutes to go. He controlled the last part of the game almost single-handedly, and looked a class player. Local newspapers in Gainsborough must have great fun with headlines after some matches. They had Bird on the wing, and in the middle, leaping high for those crosses…Charlie Trout. He was marked for most of the game by… yes, you’ve guessed it – Matt Fisher.
So the Reds bar after the match could have been a dull place. But it wasn’t. Far from it, in fact. Cheerful, friendly, packed and optimistic. A modest and unassuming Ryan Clarke accepted his player of the season trophy. He hasn’t missed a match all season, and he has given us some terrific memories. That goal at Northwich.. what a cracker !
And Dave Robinson, chatting quietly in the corner of the room, reflecting on a career that has seen him at Ilkeston, Tamworth, and Gresley, through some dark months at Alfreton, to a position of satisfying safety in the Conference North table.
He’s retiring from soccer to do an MBA to further his career. Will he miss the game? ‘Of course. Next August, when the season starts, it’s going to be difficult not to be involved.’
And Chairman Wayne Bradley, musing on tough decisions that need to be taken in the close season. Will the manager have more money for players ? ‘No,’ came the bluntly honest reply. Each of those three key figures in the Reds season had more to say, in their own quiet fashion.
Without prompting, they all echoed the same thoughts about one man, who also sat quietly chatting to all who approached him. Their praise for him was genuine, heartfelt, and unreserved. Gary Mills.
He’s endured some harsh criticism at times this season. He has always faced his critics, and all the journalists, squarely, and like a gentleman.
The poet Rudyard Kipling gave us the lines:
“If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting, too…..”

Well done Gary. Have a good summer.

ALFRETON TOWN: Bodkin, Clarke, Featherstone, Robinson ( c), Friars, Nwadike, Mills, Fisher, Rankine (Godber 71), Stevenson, Litchfield Bettney (75). Sub not used: Harcourt, Flanagan.
GAINSBOROUGH TRINITY: Poulter, Purkiss, Lill, Ellis, Pell, Lancaster. Trout, Parker, Smith (Bird 80), Mallon, Caudwell (Stedman 72). Subs not used: Thorpe, Burberry, Holmshaw.
GOALS: Alfreton -Stevenson 33mins. Gainsborough - Mallon 28 mins, Parker 82 mins.
REFEREE: Mr D Mohared (Hyde).
ATTENDANCE: 301.
RED CARD: Godber (90) foul and abusive language, Yellow cards: none
REDS MAN OF THE MATCH: Gary Mills.