Marine 2-3 Chasetown
Match report by Barry Godfrey

Chasetown came from 2-0 down after an hour, to snatch victory with minutes to spare, leaving spectators somewhat stunned, though with differing emotions.

A fairly ordinary first half gave no hint of the drama to come; the first incident of note being Aaron Rey’s close range miss after 16 minutes. Just past the half hour a Mark Branch free kick caused consternation in the home defence, a couple of minutes later a Stephen Johnson shot fizzed just wide. Five minutes before the break Richard Teesdale’s header from a Branch corner was headed off the line by Ian Latham. With half time beckoning, Neil Harvey turned his marker and crossed for an unmarked Aaron Rey to side foot the ball into the gaping net.

Within moments of the restart, Paul Lundon blocked a goalbound effort. A stylish turn and shot by Neil Harvey was narrowly off target. On 57 minutes, Daniel Smith, who had replaced “Goal Machine” Dean Perrow at half time, headed over when well placed. Three minutes later as Ian Latham trundled his way across the penalty area, he was rather needlessly felled by Chris Slater; Thomas Moore was in no doubt where his spot kick was bound…2-0 to the homesters! Seemingly, ”job done”, as we used to say in “Bob-a-Job Week”, indeed your scribe was heard to mutter something about a pending clean sheet…how wrong can you/I be? Chasetown’s immediate riposte saw Smith head over again; then Kingsley James slalomed his way infield from the right wing before despatching a glorious left-footer into the top corner(shades of his namesake Leighton of 70s Wales, Burnley, Derby County fame). Straightaway, the visitors took off Gary Birch, bringing on Linden Dovey, but as Kirsty W. might say “more on that later.” On 74 minutes, Kingsley demonstrated that there was nothing amiss with his right foot, finishing smartly after bamboozling the Marine defence. To their credit both teams went for the winner and with 3 minutes left on the clock, Chasetown broke away down the right and with the Marine defence all at sea, Daniel Smith crossed to the aforementioned Linden Dovey who was in the proverbial “oceans of space”, easily beating the exposed Ryan McMahon. There was still time for Darren Stride to receive a second yellow card for a meaty tackle on Paul Brown, but this didn’t affect matters and Chasetown held on for a victory which at 4.15pm had seemed unlikely but was a tribute to their resilience and never say die attitude.

So,next week, as Dame Vera so memorably sang “We’ll Meet Again”, in the F.A.Trophy, when pounds not points go the victors; we look forward to the colourful display of the visitors’ banners…they flagged…their team didn’t!

Marine: McMahon (C), Lundon, Shaw, S Barnes, M Brown (P Brown 75), Moore, Johnson, Goulding, Harvey, Rey (A Fowler 75), Latham (Gargan 90)
Subs not used: K Brown, L Barnes
Scorers: Rey (44), Moore (60 pen)
Cautions: Goulding

Chasetown: Price, Farmer, Branch, Slater, Stride, Teesdale (C), Hands, Reid, Birch (Dovey 69), Perrow (Smith 45 (Turner 90)), James
Subs not used: Westwood, Peel
Scorers: James (67 & 74), Dovey (87)
Cautions: Hands
Sent off: Stride

Attendance: 296

Referee: B Cropp (St. Annes)
Assistants: C Porter (Thornton Cleveleys) & M Bates (Poulton-le-Fylde)