Team - Liversedge, Craddock, Scott, Burgess, Johnson, McReady, Southern (Lyth 10 mins), Hackworth (Oakley (47 mins), Campbell, Leeson, Batchelor Sub not used D Campbell
Report - by Andy Baxter - Whitby Town’s lowest crowd of the season at just 131 ventured out to see them play in the Evo-stik Challenge Cup against North Ferriby Utd, and were disappointed as the Seasiders conceded 3 goals, had 3 key players with injuries.
Whitby welcomed back Kev Burgess from suspension with Ashley Lyth starting on the bench and Nick Liversedge returning in goal. Whitby enjoyed the opening exchanges but it was the visitors who came closest on 7 mins when Sam Denton played in Gary Bradshaw, who turned in the are and struck an angled shot across the area, beating the outstretched Liversedge, only to see the ball bounce off the outside of the left hand post
With 11 mins gone, a deep cross in to the Ferriby box saw the visitor’s keeper, Wilson, fumble the ball which fell to Whitby’s Andy Leeson, but his attempt to scramble the ball home was thwarted by Wilson and it was finally cleared. Five minutes later following some neat interplay by Whitby, John McReady turned and shot goalwards, inly for keeper Wilson to finger tip his effort over the bar. With just 19 mins gone, Whitby were forced into an early substitution as David Southern left the field with a re-occurring knee problem, to be replaced by Ashley Lyth.
Although Whitby pushed forward and were having much of the ball, including putting it in the back of the Ferriby net in the 30th minute from Andy Campbell, only to see his goal ruled out for offside, the visitors always looked dangerous on the break and within a minute took the lead when the ever dangerous Alex Davidson picked up a pass following Kev Burgess’ stumble on the slippy surface and Davidson advanced 5 yards, turned inside Craddock and slid the ball low past Liversedge at the near post.
With 38 mins gone, Davidson again breezed through the Whitby defence and found Chris White, whose well hit shot was equally well saved by Liversedge. But 3 mins later, the visitors increased their lead, this time Davidson striking from outside the Whitby area and seeing his shot cannon off someone in a crowd of players, flying over everyone, including Liversedge and into the Whitby net.
The visitors were dominating the game at this stage and added further misery to Whitby with a minute to half time as Davidson, again running riot through the Whitby rear guard easily beat his marker and unselfishly slid the ball across to Gary Bradshaw for the easiest of close range tap ins. Tony Hackworth went into a challenge near the end of the half and limped off, only to return from the dressing room at the start of the 2nd period, but after making it out onto the pitch was unable to actually start and he was substituted by Whitby’s only other outfield substitute, Stephen Oakley.
The first effort of the 2nd half came in the 55th minute when a Chris Batchelor free kick for Whitby was cleared to Leon Scott and he drove a half volley into the stomach of keeper Wilson. The game then went into a lengthy period of sloppy play but to be fair to both sets of players, the Turnbull pitch had now cut up so badly that it was a sticky mess and groundsman, Eric Wilson, will have a seemingly impossible task to try and repair it.
It then took until the 75th minute for any notable effort on goal, that coming from Chris Batchelor who shot narrowly over the Ferriby cross bar from 20 yards out and minutes later Ashley Lyth also came close with a shot. But Ferriby always looked comfortable and within seconds of Lyth’s effort, at the other end, substitute Gareth Own rounded the out coming Liversedge and with an open goal in front of him, comically stumbled to miskick his shot, much to the delight of the home fans.
Then within a minute Ferriby squandered yet another opportunity with a 2 on 1 situation in which Gareth Owen could have easily squared the ball to Chris White but he put his pass too near to Liversedge, who gratefully gathered the ball. The Whitby keeper then pulled off a superb save from White and just when it looked like referee Stuart Campbell was about to end the game, the ball was bouncing around outside the Ferriby box and ended up at the boot of Chris Batchelor, who hit yet another of his wonderful power strikes from 25 yards which flew into the Ferriby net for a very late consolation goal; and what was to be the last action of the game.
After the match, Whitby Manager, Tommy Cassidy said that he had again learned a lot about his players. They were terrible in the first half but played a little better in the second, showing some pride at least. However, he commented that some of his squad, and they know who they are, need to take a good look at themselves and he will be bringing in the types of players he wants, in the Summer. Tommy stated that his squad definitely needs to be bigger, especially as 3 key players from this game, Southern, Hackworth and Scott had had knee injuries and Scott should really have come off, but to his credit he stayed on until the end and received the sponsors Man of the Match.
