EMCL ~ Blaby and Whetstone 4 Gedling MW 0

A fruitless trip to Leicestershire

Blaby/Whetstone AFC…4 (Hill 49 and 58 Warner 68 Prescott 74)
Gedling MW..................0

Gedling lose out in Leicestershire

Gedling welcomed back Tom Watson after injury and introduced debutant Anton Daniels in the ‘number 10' role

It was always going to be an interesting afternoon according to the stats. The home team went into the match on a 6 game unbeaten run whilst the Miners hadn’t won for six. These numbers seemed to count for nothing in the opening exchanges as the visitors took the game to their hosts with some fine football and counter attacking.

Watson went close and Liam Moran fired just wide after a Mark Ballard free kick. At the other end Scott Miles easily held onto a couple of decent efforts from Blues top scorer Aaron Preston.

Disaster in the 14th minute as Daniels was dismissed for an off the ball incident with home centre back Matt Howarth. The near side assistant seemed to see what happened rather than the players and crowd who had followed the ball upfield. Rather than let this mishap affect their play, the Miners still looked the better team and should have gone ahead in the 27th minute as a bullet header from Moran was tipped over by home custodian Tom Holyoake.

A better chance came 10 minutes later. Following a right wing corner Dalton Stephens had a super header parried by Holyoake and his follow up shot rebounded back into play from the foot of a post.

It was all Gedling now and one could have been mistaken in thinking which team was which. Miles and the back four had to be alert to keep the League’s leading scorer Preston at bay but 0-0 at the break seemed fair on the balance of play

Two half time home substitutions seemed to spark life into the home team and one of them, local favourite, Tom Hill began to pull the strings in midfield for his team.

He scored the opener four minutes in and then doubled his tally before setting up Mitch Warner for number 3 half way through the half.

It was all Blaby now and Gedling were a shadow of themselves chasing lost causes and proving no threat to Holyoak and his defence. Hill was orchestrating everything good about the home teams attacking display and they run out 4 goals to the good with strikes from

On another day Gedling could have salvaged something from the game. Their first half display, coupled with a return from injuries, may well see better times ahead for the rest of the campaign.

Att ~ 42
Referee ~ Craig Langton
Assistants ~ Nigel Marriot and Liam Mayes

Blaby ~ Holyoake, Towers, Hawker, Lavin, Howarth, Warner, Barrett (Anthony Marriott 45) Prescott (Beardmore 74) Warner, Preston, Ross(Hill 45)
Subs not used ~ Wilson and Dan Marriott.
Yellow cards ~ Howarth (30 foul) Barrett (33 foul) Preston (59 foul)