Tuesday, 13 September 2011
STL Northern League Division 1
Sunderland RCA maintained their unbeaten league record with a hard earned win against Bishop Auckland FC and in the process destroyed Bishop's unbeaten away record. This was the first of three encounters with Bishops in the next 11 days and if this game was anything to go by then get along to Heritage Park on Saturday for Part II, The Sequel!
The match was never going to be a classic with a blustery wind blowing straight down the pitch causing all sorts of problems for both defences.
For the first time this season RCA's starting 11 remained unchanged from the team that won at Benfield on Saturday. However, Carl Beasley returned to the squad after serving his suspension for a red card received on the first day of tha season.
RCA took advantage of the slope and the wind in the first half and were immediately on the attack with a Davison effort going narrowly wide.
Bishops were finding it difficult to clear the ball past the half way line as RCA put them under severe pressure. A goalkick by Bishop landed invitingly for close and his snap shot from 35 yards went narrowly over the bar.
With the wind at their backs it was all one way traffic and a turn a shot by Davison took a wicked deflection wide for a corner. The goalmouth scramble that followed the corner should have produced a goal, but instead Bishop pulled off a superb save from a Jennings shot. A minute later and Bishops had their first real foray into RCA territory when Wells was sent clear on the right and his cross into the box evaded everyone to land at the feet of Bell on the corner of the 18 yard box, but his effort was scrambled away for a corner.
Jones and Ellison then combined down the right to produce the best chance so far, but Ellison's shot went just the wrong side of the post with Bishops beaten.
The game started to settle down as Bishop's defence got to grips with the attacking force of RCA, but was to explode into life again in the 19th minute when Bishops were awarded a freekick on the edge of the box; up stepped Johnson to blast the freekick goalwards, the ball took a wicked deflection of McGuinness, wrong footed Hoggeth and ended up in the back of the RCA net.
RCA were level within a minute when they were awarded a free kick 35 yards out. McGuinness floated the ball towards Jennings who headed it across the face of the goal and Maddison flung himself at the ball to head home from inside the six yard area.
Unfortunately the wind was not getting any better and time and again balls were being overplayed by RCA and played short by Bishop's players. However both teams could not be faulted for giving 100% effort especially the Bishop's defence with Brown outstanding.
As the first half came to a close RCA were continuing to try a penetrate Bishop's stubborn defence but it looked likely that they wouldn't succeed until in the 44th minute a freekick from Ellison was curled into the box and Maddison was on hand at the back post to power in a flying header.
It was role reversal for the second half as the wind persisted and Bishops tried to take full advantage of it. Bishops, like RCA in the first half committed men forward in search of the equaliser and were very unlucky when Strong had a long range effort saved by Hoggeth.
Almost immediately Richardson had a shot charged down by Maddison and the rebound was fired in by Wells, but was deflected for a corner.
Wells took the inswinging corner and the ball struck the base of the near post before hitting the back of Ellison's legs and ended up in the net: 2 - 2 after 58 minutes and game on.
It looked at this point as though the tide had turned and the game was there for Bishops. However RCA had once again not read the script and Stewart produced a great bit of trickery at the other end as he weaved his way past three defenders and into the area before calmly placing the ball into the net off the far post - 60 minutes gone and advantage to RCA.
Bishops threw everything at RCA in the next five minutes with Johnson, Strong and Bell all unable to test Hoggeth. However in the 70th minute hoggeth had to be at his very best to pull off a one-handed save from Johnson.
A number of unusual mistakes by first Hoggeth and then Carling resulted in Carling bringing down Strong on the edge of the box. Up stepped Johnson, but this time his effort flew harmlessly over the bar.
Stewart was released by Davison at the other end and when the ball was played back to Davison he fired in a low shot which went into the side netting.
As the game progressed RCA seemed to have weathered the storm in more ways than one and Bishops started to rely on long hopefull balls which were dealt with by the RCA defence at the heart of which was Maddison, who was having one of the best games seen at Meadow Park by a defender, in a lot of years.
In the final minutes Bishops attacked relentlessly, but were unable to breach the resolute RCA defence and were almost caught by quick counter attacks by Davison and Stewart.
Both teams performed really well in difficult conditions. See you again on Saturday.