Northern League Division One

27 September 2008

Bishop Auckland 3 : West Auckland 4

Team: Chris Porter, Lee Foster, Arjun Purewal, Lewis Hardman, Gary Anderson, Neil Wilkinson, Kevin Dixon, Joe Fairish, Amar Purewal, Gavin Parkin, Keith Hutchinson

Second Auckland derby of the season in only our fifth league game. Chris Porter and Kevin Dixon were available and Lewis Hardman signed this week on loan from Darlington made his debut. Gavin Barton was unavailable through work commitments and Scott Richards was injured.

Bishops made all the early running and had already missed a couple of half chances when they took the lead on 15 minutes. A corner was pushed back out of the box by Arjun Purewal to Hardman whose hard low shot was fired straight into the bottom corner. 1-0.

It should have been 2-0 on 32 minutes when Amar Purewal half blocked a clearance from West ‘keeper Hall. The ball went too wide to allow Amar a straight shot, and his cross didn’t find the attacking Hutchinson or Parkin. West immediately broke with a long ball and Flockett pounced to make it 1-1.

Yet again, Bishops made a nightmare start to a half. West were ahead inside a minute of the restart. Bishops were caught cold and as Fairish tried to halt a run through the middle with a mistimed tackle, the ball fell to Jardine to curl home for 2-1.

Bishops defence just couldn’t handle West’s long ball style and Jardine scored again on 52 minutes when a speculative cross was deflected into open space by Arjun Purewal and the former Bishop player had the easy job of beating the ‘keeper. West had put away every chance they had created, and it looked like game over.

But once again Bishops rallied to the cause and made things difficult. On 53 minutes Amar Purewal raced down the right and fired in a high looping cross which seemed destined for the far top corner of the net. Keeper Hall flapped and missed, but the ball cannoned off the bar and away to safety.

Parkin spun and shot on 59 minutes but Hall parried the ball and again it didn’t fall to a blue player. West were starting to look ragged.

Bishops finally had a goal back on 61 minutes. A free-kick was awarded just outside the box. Fairish took the shot, but a West defender in the wall half blocked the ball with an outstretched arm. It looped up and towards the goal. Parkin applied the finishing touch after Hall failed to collect the ball in the air.

The classy Hardman created the equaliser on 65 minutes when he raced through the West midfield and defence. His shot from wide on the right was deflected into the path of Amar Purewal who finished from close range. 3-3.

But after doing all the the hard work of getting back into the game, Bishops presented West with the winner three minutes later. Porter scuffed a clearance straight to Flockett who fired it home. The fifth goal in a crazy 22 minute spell.

Bishops pressed and pressed, but another equaliser just wouldn’t come. Parkin was unlucky on 72 minutes when he spun to volley from 12 yards, but the ball hit the ‘keeper’s legs.

Purewal fired in a beautiful driven cross on 78 minutes but there was no-one on hand to apply the finish. A Parkin shot on 79 minutes was comfortably caught by Hall.

West were rattled, and were running the clock down by humping the ball into adjacent fields, feigning injuries and going for the corner flags. Heckley was lucky to stay on the field when he lunged into a horrendous two footed studs up tackle, but somehow got away with a yellow after the referee had managed to keep the players apart. Presumably this encouraged the referee to add only a minute of added time and blow early to end a thrilling but ultimately unsuccessful encounter.

Fixtures and Results