Whitby 2 Altrincham 3
in UniBond Premier League
19th January 2002.
Summary and other details by John Laidlar. His full report is in the Official Site by John
Alty arrived at Whitby seeking their first away win in the League since 15th September last year! This was largely to do to a lack of league activity and, indeed, this was Altrincham's first league game of any kind for four weeks. Whitby had enjoyed poor home form this season, gaining only one of their six league victories at home.
An 88th minute winner from Kevin Hulme gained Altrincham their win after they had let an early two-goal lead slip. Firstly, Paul Taylor headed home a Neil Ryan corner after only two minutes and then Ian Craney added a second after 16 minutes. However, Whitby scored through Goodchild from a goalmouth melee after a corner on 26 minutes and the Blues then equalised on the stroke of half-time. This goal came when a bad back pass from Paul Taylor fell short and Lee Ure nipped in to score. Alty had the better of the last half-hour after a strong start to the second half from Whitby and they finally got their reward when Hulme finished off good work by Ryan and Craney.
Altrincham restored Danny Murphy to the starting line-up after he had started as a sub in the match last Tuesday in the Cheshire Senior Cup; Lee Poland was the man dropped to the bench to accommodate him. For Whitby, Alan Anderson was making his league debut.
The day started badly for your photographer Whitby will not allow photographers to cross the perimeter fence but worse was to come. A problem with the camera caused all the Whitby shots to be erased. Sorry about that, the only piece of silver lining was the fact that I did not have to spend several hours selecting. trimming, editing and condensing the photos for the web site,
The problem has been overcome and photos will be taken at Runcorn on Tuesday