Sunderland RCA 2 Stokesley 1

skilltraining Northern League

25 April 2009

It was the last throw of the dice today at Meadow Park, as RCA fought to keep their slim promotion hopes alive, against a Stokelsey team that dented them considerably when they held us to a 3 - 3 draw at their place a couple of weeks ago. It was a strong RCA team that took the field, with Mick Coghlan in midfield for the delayed Scott Richards.

RCA started like a house on fire down the bank and had three good chances in the first few minutes as Steve Jones pushed forward and joined the attack and had a shot pushed wide for a corner, from which the keeper made a point blank save from a Mark Davison volley and Andy Jennings headed over the bar. Things settled and Stokesley got a foothold in the game, playing the ball about nicely and causing a few problems.

The game became a bit scrappy as the half wore on, with Stokesley holding the ball well when they could and RCA looking dangerous when they got the ball forward. AJ headed over and was beaten by the keeper to a long ball, Taz curled one past the post, before Gary Shields, who looked very lively, dropped one onto Andy's head for him to give us the lead on 39 minutes. That looked like being the half time, but with a minute left of the half Stokelsey broke for Dale Mendhum to bring them level, 1 - 1 at HT.

Stokesley fancied their chances playing down the bank in the second half and started strongly, but RCA play better football up the bank than down it nowadays and had a couple of good chances themselves. Sparky put a header past the post and a shot into the side netting, but Stokesley had a great chance to take the lead which Hoggy saved. Then up popped Steve Jones, having one of his most adventurous games to side foot home from eight yards and put us back in front, 2 - 1 on 62 minutes. Stokesley huffed and puffed, Taz hit the bar, but the game looked over and so it proved as we wound down the clock to win the game as needed, only to find Horden had tonked Crook, and that was that for another year.