A closely fought contest in Northumberland saw Leek Town overcome Morpeth Town 1-0 with a well taken goal from the Blues top scorer Conor Heath. The game also marked the 100th appearance for Dino Visser in Blues shirt, whose performance was assured as ever.

The victory pushed Morpeth back down into the relegation spots after two consecutive wins whilst Leek remained in 14th place with a seven point cushion between them and relegation with five games remaining. It was also the second double of the season for the Blues duplicating the scoreline from the home fixture earlier in the season.

Ollie Heywood returned to the starting eleven as Cullen Meadowcroft was unavailable after picking up a knock in training and Ollie Shenton still on the road to recovery.

Leek started well without creating any clear cut chances but when they did have opportunities the final execution was not as good as it could have been with the Blues overplaying.

Morpeth were forced into an early change with King being withdrawn with injury and replaced by Henderson.

Morpeth were confined to set pieces and had two early opportunities to put the Blues defence under pressure with deep balls from the half way line.

Morpeth had a great chance to open the deadlock on 27 minutes when a long ball was controlled by James, he attempted to round the keeper but Visser stole the ball away from has he went ground at his feet.

On 33 minutes Heath had his first chance of the game when Porter found him on the right but he scuffed his shot wide of the post on the unpredictive surface.

It wasnt long before he opened his account and on 36 minutes the deadlock was broken. Weir played a neat pass to Hurst who fed a through ball to Heath, he powered through, shrugged off his marker and calmly stoked the ball past Langley.

Morpeth had more chance to put the Leek defence under pressure with another long free kick, but the Blues held firm.

MORPETH TOWN 0 – LEEK TOWN 1 HT

As expected, the home side came out with more purpose at the start of the second half. On 56 minutes they crafted their first chance with a free kick to Henderson at the far post who hooked the ball over the defenders to find Robson but his head was over the bar.

The game became a midfield battle with Leek content to hold on to their advantage with Morpeth looking to break open the well drilled defence. Long diagonals were played from the Morpeth half and defended well.

On 65 minutes Leek broke on the right wing and Buckley advanced in the area, he elected to cross when he perhaps should have shot with the ball failing to connect with a Leek Town forward.

Potts was brought on to inject fresh legs on 68 minutes for Heath and caused all sorts of problems. Hurst advanced down the left and put a tantalising ball across the box to Potts who just failed to connect. Next he had his back to goal and attempted a cheeky back heel which was defended again.

Minutes later it was Potts turn to cross the ball with the ball being turned away for a corner. More changes were made when on 79 minutes when Stafford made way for Campbell and Hurst dropped back to left wing back,.

Campbell again was just thwarted when receiving a ball with his back to goal, his flick goal bound which was turned round for a corner.

The game was entering the final 10 minutes and Morpeth went more and more direct and made multiple substitutions to inject new pace into the attack.

There was a flash point on 83 minutes when Weir fell to the floor after a clash of heads, inexplicably the referee played on and when he did eventually stop the game booked Potts for his protests. After a reasonable game at that point the referee gave some strange decisions for both sides, including another yellow card harshly for Heywood for delaying a throw in.

Despite indicating 5 minutes of added time 7 were played, Morpeth had one final throw of the dice with a corner but the referee finally blew to rapturous cheers from the Leek Town faithful.

MORPETH TOWN 0 – LEEK TOWN 1 FT

MATCH REPORT BY MORENEWSFROMNOWHERE

So the Blues return from their travels with 3 points and a 7 point gap between them and the relegation zone. There is no midweek game but we return to home comforts on GOOD FRIDAY with a game against Bamber Bridge on 3 April with a 6:30 kick off

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