East Midlands Counties League
The Moat Ground, Church Gresley
Saturday, 28th November 2009, 3.00pm
Five Goal Gresley Romp
Goals from Mickey Lyons, Jamie Barrett, Carl Slater, Royce Turville and Brian Woodall ensured a comfortable win over struggling Anstey Nomads and it was only a sterling display from the visiting keeper Dan Hanley that kept the score from being a much wider margin.
Anstey were forced on to the back foot right from the first whistle with Lyons, Martin Gadsby and Jordi Gough all going close in the first three minutes.
Turville was unlucky to see his shot hit the side netting as he forced himself into the box and then Woodall's on target shot was deflected for a corner with the defender not knowing anything about it.
On 17 minutes Gresley were shown that they couldn't take things for granted when a poor header fell for Warren York who burst forward only to be denied by a superbly timed tackle from Barrett just inside the area.
Although Gresley had dominated the opening period it took until the 30 minute mark before they breeched the Nomads defence. A great exchange between Woodall and Lyons ended with Lyons hitting a low shot that beat Hanley.
Hanley then produced the first of numerous good saves to deny Lyons an identical goal but this time the keeper got down very well to push the ball away for a corner.
Gresley doubled their tally on 33 minutes when Turville's run down the right ended with him picking out Barrett who smashed the ball home from close in.
It was then the turn of skipper Slater to get on the score sheet with three minutes left of the first half. Collecting a free kick from Lyons he took one step forward and unleashed a vicious dipping shot from 25 yards that deceived Hanley flying over his head and into the roof of the net.
Hanley made a good save from Gareth Langford's powerful header after Matt Hill had swung in the corner.
And Nomads had Hanley to thank again as Gresley threatened his goal in the remaining seconds of the first half. He made a save diving to his left to push Turville's shot away and then spectacularly tipped Woodall's stinging shot over the bar.
Gresley were on top straight from the start of the second period with Lyons hitting a shot just wide but on 53 minutes they increased their lead.
A good move that started from defence saw Woodall race down the right and then sent in a really inviting ball into the box where Turville met it with a diving header past Hanley.
The fifth goal came seven minutes later when Slater fed a superb pass to Woodall through the middle and from 25 yards he fired an absolute screamer that left Hanley a mere spectator.
Gresley had several more chances to add to the score with Woodall going just wide, Lyons being denied by Hanley and both Turville and substitute Rob Spencer shooting wide.
Hanley yet again denied Gresley goals by producing a fine save from Spencer and then from substitute Stefan Marshall.
Manager's View
"It always pleases me when we get different scores on the scoresheet but I was more pleased with how we got the job done in a professional manner today.
"We said before the game that we'd got to concentrate in these sorts of games. We first of all won it and then got some goals as well.
"Anstey tried to play football and I'm full of respect for them for that. They worked their socks off and worked hard. They started with two up front. Some sides do come here do try to contain us but they tried to play and it was clear that a lot of the opportunities they would get would be on the break and they caused a few problems first half.
"I don't think as a unit we were working hard enough off the ball when they had it and therefore they were getting opportunities to maybe knock a few long diagonal balls which seemed to be part of a game plan to get in behind us and they caught us square once or twice and the linesman has saved us once or twice in the first half.
"But we made a couple of little adjustments to put more pressure on the ball so that they didn't have the time and space to do that and I think we snuffed that out.
"Credit to them they worked their socks off for ninety minutes and it was a very competitive afternoon.
"We hope we haven't picked any injuries up. The only slight concern we have from today, although it doesn't have a bearing on next week, Martin Gadsby has just complained of a tight hamstring. To be honest it was in my mind to bring one of next week's key players off and just save them a little bit like we did with Royce Turville that was all that was about to give him a bit of a breather.
"There will be some selection problems. We will have Jack Coulson back in the mix but we're not sure about Mark Blount yet. He's going to see a physio at a place we use in Mickelover on Monday. We hope Richard Butler will be back and Tom Betteridge should be back from a calf problem so we'll see how the injuries go in the week and see what we have to pick from.
"I don't know if next week's opponents where he again today. They were here on Tuesday. We had someone at Spennymoor last week and we've managed to pull a favour and had someone there today.
"But, I'll be honest I haven't really thought about next week too much I've been busy trying to tell the lads to focus on the next game ahead of them but it's difficult not to cast an eye over there partly in preparation.
"I've been concentrating on this game all week so now that's done and with no midweek game just training to plan we can start to have a little think. Someone has said we've only been going four months as a club really so it's the biggest game we've had in our short history as Gresley FC and not many people outside maybe a mile or so of this ground are giving us too much hope.
"Spennymoor are a cracking side and were in our position a few years ago where they reformed and fair play to them and they look to have got themselves in good shape with good support. You've only got to look at their website and the sponsorships of all the players and stuff like that they've got and we're nowhere near that yet. Look at our sponsor a player page in our programme I think there are two or three there and other little things we run from a sponsorship point of view are not taking off so in terms of generating capital to maybe give us a foundation to move forward we are in the infancy whereas they seem to have established themselves so fair play and I'm very much looking forward to the game.
"From all accounts they play some cracking stuff and it should be an entertaining afternoon and I'm sure we'll make some friends on the afternoon as well. I think there are quite a few coming down and there's been a fair bit of banter between the two sets of supporters and hopefully we can forge some friendships on the day whatever the result.
"Apart from the Belper game, we've been tagged as favourites if you like for most of the games we've played this year but Martin Rowe has just said in the dressing room that it's a different tag next week for us. We're the underdogs and as I've said not many people outside of the locality are giving us much hope.
"I just hope that we give a good account of ourselves work very hard and maybe have one or two little surprises up our sleeves and maybe cause an upset. It happens all the times so there's no reason why we can't play to our strengths. We will have to play to our strengths to get a result and hope that Spennymoor don't quite click like they have done.
"I think before today's game they've got fifty points from twenty games in the league and that's some going. They are no mugs at all. They've got a very good squad probably a squad that would easily be able to play in the UniBond and probably a little bit higher UniBond Premier maybe.
"I'm learning a lot about this league (Northern League) all the time and people are telling me that it's the strongest step five league because of the isolation up in the North East. Not a lot of teams want to get promoted a lot of travelling involved.
"It's going to be a tough afternoon but one we're looking forward to especially having done the job today in a professional manner."
