Northern League Division One
18 October 2008
Bishop Auckland 1 :
Billingham Synthonia 2
Team: Peter
Jeffries, Lee Foster, Gary Ankers, Lewis Hardman, Arjun Purewal, Neil
Wilkinson, Scott Richards, Joe Fairish (Kevin Dixon HT), Gavin Barton, Gavin Parkin,
Dale Dunn
After a wet morning
it was a sunny mid-afternoon for the arrival of league leaders Billingham
Synthonia. Lee Foster and Neil Wilkinson
returned to strengthen the defence and Dale Dunn retained his place in midfield
after his excellent performance of the previous week.
Billingham had the
terretorial advantage in the first half, but it was Bishops who came closest to
breaking the deadlock. Dale Dunn fired
the ball over to Parkin who took the ball down on his chest and volleyed against
the near post.
Man of the Match ?
Just on half time,
Hardman went in for the ball with two feet and was given a yellow card after
the referee restored order with players “squaring up” all over the field. Whilst the incident may have looked bad from
some angles, the referee saw it correctly in that Lewis clearly got the ball
well before the Synthonia player arrived.
Bishops took the
lead on 54 minutes when Barton beat two men down the right and fired in a low cross
which Synthonia defender Abel diverted into his own net for an own goal.
Bishops celebrate, Synthonia
sulk
Abel almost made
amends on 63 minutes when he met a cross with an excellent header which
Jeffries did well to push round the post at full stretch.
Bishops defended
with a degree of ease against the in-form league leaders, but things were
always likely to get a bit tense. Time
was up when it arrived, and to say it was controversial would be understating
it.
A free kick on the
half way line was punted into the Bishops penalty area. The ball bobbled about in the eighteen yard
box, before being blasted with an upwards trajectory from a range of two feet
into Neil Wilkinson’s elbow. Despite the
fact that it was a totally involuntary hit, and that the ball was heading for
the nearby housing estate, the referee pointed to the spot. Shaw scored.
Shaw scores from the spot
Understandably
after being on the end of this unjust decision Bishops game dipped, and the
referee went into overdrive. Wilkinson
was yellow carded for taking a throw in slowly, and Hardman received a red for
delaying a free kick from being taken.
Masters scored an
inevitable second deep into injury time as Bishops finished the game with nine
men after Barton left the field injured.
An excellent
performance against, in theory at least, a decent team but ultimately no
points.