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Pre-season
friendly
28 July 2007
City poach a
win with a peach
by Ken Milgate
Durham City 2
Richardson 65
Farrell 81
Grantham Town 1
McDaid 41
City made all the early running without finding the target before the
game panned out only for City to go behind just before the interval; a
poacher’s goal after the hour and a peach of a winner some
ten minutes before the end maintained City’s unbeaten record
in the run-up to the new season.
City fielded a more familiar line-up against their Unibond opponents
from Lincolnshire and went close twice in the opening ten minutes: a
Tommy English free-kick from the edge of the box cannoned back off
keeper, Mario Ziccardi’s, legs and the same limbs denied
Calvin Smith when he shot for goal after racing into space in pursuit
of a through-ball.
City were spraying crisp accurate passes across the park and it was
twenty minutes before Liam Connell was called into action, taking a
Jason Minett free-kick under his crossbar. Smith’s
battling qualities were to the fore and Lewis Dodds was showing great
vision and spatial awareness.
On 27minutes Steven Richardson was within an ace of applying the
slightest touch which would have converted a through-ball with the
keeper committed to his near post.
The game then levelled out and it was the visitors who threatened
City’s goal: a three-man move saw Sam Mullarkey feed Glen
Atkinson only for Brendan McDaid to be denied like Richardson before
him as he rushed in unmarked at the far post. Two minutes
later Mullarkey set up Sean Cann only for the latter’s shot
to ping off the post and back into play.
The pressure paid off four minutes before the break when
City’s hitherto solid defence lost possession on the edge of
the box and McDaid shot the visitors in front.
Mullarkey went close five minutes into the second period from a Stuart
Reddington pass before substitute John Butler broke down the right wing
before whipping in a low cross which Ziccardi got down to smother.
For the next ten minutes the game went flat before City’s
game burst into life when a fortuitous goal put them level, Richardson
scoring after the visitor’s keeper had parried
Butler’s cross-cum-shot.
Keith Graydon closed down the opposition even more and Smith was
constantly in the thick of the action at both ends.
City’s goal had a let-off on 78minutes when Cann’s
left-wing cross whizzed through a crowded box, but three minutes later
a resurgent City bagged the game when Dodds laid on a pass to Jimmy
Farrell whose deft floated cross beat the keeper at the back post.
For so long a mere spectator, Connell saved with his feet on 85minutes
from an unidentified Grantham player, and City breathed a collective
sigh of relief just before the whistle when Mullarkey, thoroughly
deserving a goal for his afternoon efforts, drove wide of the near post.
City played some impressive knockabout football and competed in
midfield, for so long terra incognita for a City side. There
is still lack of menace in front of goal and a vacancy for a bustling
forward with presence.
Durham City – Connell,
Harrison, Capper, Dodds, Bowes (Smith (R) 45), Low, Smith (C), Graydon,
Clarke, (Farrell 62), Richardson (Price 75), English (Butler 45)
Grantham Town –
Ziccardi, Wilkins, Harrison, McDaid, Reddington, Atkinson,
Mullarkey, Minett, Wilkinson, Cann, Martin
Subs (employed on a rolling basis) – Zeurner, Gilbert,
Freeman, Kennedy
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