Blyth Spartans 0 Altrincham 3

in UniBond Premier League

23 February 2002.

Summary and other details by John Laidlar. His full report is in the Official Site by John

BACKGROUND

After snow and gales in the Altrincham area and northwards on Saturday morning, it was surprising to the travelling fans that this match took place at all. In fact, most of the game was played in sunshine but with a very strong, cold and gusty wind blowing across the pitch throughout. The crowd of 479 was the highest in the UniBond on the day. The matchball was sponsored by Jack Charlton, whose son John is the Blyth manager. The former England and Leeds centre-half watched the match from the back of the stand.

SUMMARY 

Weather conditions made this a difficult game for the players but Altrincham mastered the conditions well and ran out clear winners against a side whom they had never previously beaten on their own territory. Blyth had the better of the opening stages without creating real chances but overall this was a surprisingly comfortable win for the Robins against a side who have a strong home record this season. An error by Martin let in Thornley for the first goal, which he took at the second attempt after the keeper had saved his first shot. Blyth's defence stood still to allow Murphy to head home a Ryan corner after 59 minutes before Poland slammed home the third goal from a Thornley pass, following a fine through ball from Scott (87 mins). Overall, this was an excellent performance from Altrincham.
TEAM NEWS

With Carl Furlong suspended and Jason Gallagher now out long-term with his injury, Altrincham's starting eleven was more or less as expected. On the bench David Wills came in to join Dave Swanick and Lee Poland. Altrincham started with Kevin Hulme accompanying Thornley at the front end with Neil Ryan at right back and Gary Scott in midfield. Blyth started with a 5-3-2 formation. They were without the injured Graham Pepper and Justin Keegan

 

The joys of travel - a major accident, which involved the use of two helicopters to transport the injured, occurred some miles North of our coach on the A1. We had seen the team coach heading South! The  driver  telephoned, mobiles are marvelous in such situations things to say he was going South then North up the A19 A look at the map and a right at the next intersection took us on country roads to the A19 then up to Blyth with time to spare
At the other end A great jump by Stuart Coburn tips the ball over the bar for a great save
Ian Craney in a sea of green
That ball got to come down some time for Kevin Hulme!
Mark Maddox in action
Paul Taylor has something to say - the Blyth player is unimpressed 
Rod Thornley congratulates Danny Murphy (11) on scoring Alty's second goal
At the other end another Blyth attack
Kevin Hulme has had enough - he is of  to buy a souvenir of Alty's first win at Blyth 
The Alty faithful, the choir, rendered a song I had not heard before. If I can remember the words it went something like this

"It is cold, it is cold, it is cold, it is cold" ad infinitum and it was cold. Towards the end of the game the wind increased and the temperature plummeted.

Here the a selection of the shivering enjoy the game if not the cold. Is that Dennis I see before me?

With a superb run Rod Thornley, who scored Alty's first goal beat several defenders and got in a cross for substitute Lee Poland get the ball into the net and score the 3rd goal

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