UniBond Premier

23rd January 2010

Attendance - 221

Team - D Campbell, Leeson, Lyth, Hassan, Burgess, Hanson, Dalton(Charlton 90), Hackworth, A Campbell(Ingram 90), Beadle, Scott. Subs not used: L Gildea, Yale, A Gildea.

Report - by Andrew Snaith - The mighty Blues extended their unbeaten league run to six matches and sit six points outside the top five, after a devastating second half showing against sixth-placed Hucknall at the Turnbull Ground on Saturday.

Both teams made one change with the Yellows fresh from a 5-2 drubbing of rivals Burscough just seven days earlier, while Whitby manager Harry Dunn replaced calf injury victim Alex Gildea with fellow defender Ashley Lyth.

It was the Seasiders' first Unibond Premier outing in six weeks and only hours of work from groundsman Eric Wilson saw the heavy pitch pass a morning inspection. However, this didn't show in the standard of football, as Whitby moved the ball around crisply right from the start.

Within eight minutes, skipper Tony Hackworth broke and forced Dan Haystead in the Hucknall goal to fend away a 12-yard drive. The visitors forced a succession of corners at the other end but to little avail, while on-loan ex-Middlesbrough marksman Andy Campbell came close for the Blues.

The Seasiders looked desperate to avenge Wednesday's borough derby defeat and got their reward for some neat play when Hackworth, a former employee of Hucknall's Nottinghamshire neighbours, Notts County, netted on 14 minutes. The ex-Leeds star timed his run perfectly, latching onto a through ball, turning last defender Luke Shiels and sidefooting past Haystead to equal Jimmy Beadle's 10-goal haul this season.

The Midlands outfit and 2005 FA Trophy finalists nearly levelled when Rueben Wiggins-Thomas tied Christian Hanson in knots after cutting into the six-yard box from the right. Sadly for them, the youngster could only shoot straight at keeper Dave Campbell who dived forward to gather the ball at the second attempt.

Beadle's competitive streak in wresting the top-scorer tag from Hackworth perhaps showed when the combative midfielder forced Haystead to tip over a trademark ferocious drive from distance on the half hour.

Whitby's other midfielder Leon Scott, on loan from Harrogate Town then drilled low but wide from the edge of the area after Hackworth, with his back to goal, deliberately obstructed the view of the opposing defence as he teed up his team-mate. With slide challenges unsuprisingly flying in amid the muddy surroundings, and the away side happy to repeatedly break up Whitby attacks with cynical trips, referee Mr Thompson mystified many by making Lyth the first name in his book, following a seemingly innocous challenge, eight minutes before the break.

Centre-half Adrian Hawes fired a warning shot across the Blues' bows moments later, the big defender slamming a firm header over the top from a Laurie Wilson cross. Wilson, Hucknall captain and son of Swindon Town manager Danny Wilson then limped off five minutes ahead of the interval- David Boafo taking his place.

Hawes nodded another effort goalwards, only for Beadle to nod it straight back, from his own goal-line. As Bryan Chambers' men piled on the pressure, a second shot was cleared off the Whitby line, only for Boafo, after a spell of pinball in the Blues' box, to lash home from just inside the area.

The half-time whistle blew within seconds of the restart, but if such a well-timed strike was expected to ruffle Whitby feathers, they proved a more than game bird in the second half. The Blues laid siege with the visitors retaining their own siege mentality- Deon Meikle lucky to escape with a yellow card after appearing to throw a punch in a melee in the Hucknall half. When the dust settled, Andy Campbell was also cautioned.

Ged Dalton's movement was testing the static yellow backline, and right-back Lee Stevenson, perhaps took exception to that- sending the teenager sprawling with a swinging arm during a routine halfway line header, on the hour. A booking for Stevenson, but Dalton delivered his own brand of justice five minutes later, tricking his way down the left, past the Hucknall man, before firing low across Haystead and inside the far post, from an acute angle.

Ten minutes from time, Campbell delivered the cous de gras. The former Middlesbrough marksman doing well to keep his feet as he ran onto Beadle's perfectly weighted through pass and just about squeezed the ball past Haystead and over the goal-line, despite Hawes' desperate last-ditch slide. The Bradford Park Avenue loanee has now scored in each of his last five league outings, and earned a deserved ovation when making way for Karl Charlton in the final minute.

Dalton blotted his copybook with a needless yellow card for kicking the ball away following a foul, but still took similiar applause in injury time, when defender Denny Ingram took his place. There was still time for Lee Whittington to poke well wide from close range- Hucknall's second replacement unable to emulate their first, and finding the streets of Whitby paved with anything but gold.