by Peter Scherer (Photography by Steve Ingers)
After a couple of recent disappointments, it was back to winning ways with a bang for Mickleover, as two goals in each half secured a 4-0 win over Blyth Spartans.
Starting line-up: 1-Kieren Flavell 2-Jake Bennett 3-Cieron Keane 4-Curtis Weston 5-Chrlie Hickingbottom 6-George Taft 7-Dylan Edwards 8- Dan Bradley 9-Styart Beavon 10-Andy Dales 11-Marcus Barnes. Subs: Callum Moore, Brandon Ferron, Jahvan Davidson-Miller, Toby Smith, Justin Iwobi.
Sports were straight on the attack from the kick off, and soon gained their reward with the opening goal after nine minutes. The ball had been played to Dales on the left, he crossed and found Beavon in the middle, who tucked the ball home to make it 1-0.
Mickleover were forced to make a change 20 minutes in though, when Bradley took a knock and was replaced by Ferron, who moved to left back, with Keane going into midfield.
There had been little threat from the visitors and after 38 minutes there was almost a second for Mickleover, when Barnes took the ball past a defender on the right, and fired goalwards, with keeper Bond’s save going off the post.
There was only another six minutes wait however before Edwards hit the second, after getting on the end
of a counter attack, 2-0, with a the half time whistle soon following.
The second half started as the first had finished and only three minutes in Barnes broke clear to make it 3-0 after 47 minutes.
Moore, Davidson-Miller and Iwobi had all come on as substitutes, as Blyth did get forward a little more, bringing Flavell into the game after being virtually redundant in the first half.
Smith was the final sub on for Keane, but there was still another goal to come. Beavon went down the right and made a telling chip to the far post, where Davidson-Miller was waiting and smashed the ball into the roof of the net, to make the final score 4-0, as winter came early with hail and very heavy rain.
“The lads followed my instructions from the start, on the front foot and keeping the pressure on continuously from start to finish. We have lost one game in eight to one of the best teams in the league, we got another clean sheet today and for now, we’ve finished with the Saturday, Tuesday, Saturday games. We’ve been under pressure for this first quarter of the season, but now we can look at things more in training and in eighth we’re only just outside the play-offs,” said Sports boss Gareth Holmes.
