Marine

2

Glossop North End

1

HT: 1 - 0

Cup Hopes Marooned at Marine

Integro Doodson Cup 1st Round

Glossop bowed out of the Evo-Stik League’s cup competition at the first hurdle after a frustrating evening on the Mersey coast. The referee was the centre of the North End exasperation, awarding a mystery penalty and booking six Glossop North End players in total in a game without a bad tackle.

The Hillmen had started brightly, despite playing into the wind, and had Marine under pressure. Andy Smart put in a sharp low cross that former Glossop keeper Matt Cooper had to smother well at his near post. Then Tom Bailey showed a deft touch to beat his man to create some space for himself, shot across goal and Cooper was required to dive full length to push wide.

However a refereeing decision on 29 minutes completely derailed North End. There was a tackle outside the box that may have been a foul, and then the ball ran into the box where Kelvin Lugsden beat Chad Whyte to the ball and cleared. However, the referee awarded a penalty. It wasn’t clear as to which incident he was referring to, however neither warranted a spot kick. Kelvin Lugsden was booked for pointing this out too vociferously.

Justice seemed to be served when Greg Hall saved Whyte’s weak spot kick, but a minute later they were behind in any case. The injustice of the decision was still rankling and it affected the concentration when a long kick was punted forward. It allowed the ball to drop to Lewis Codling at the edge of the area and he fired home into the corner of the net that Whyte had been aiming for, out of Hall’s reach.

Glossop pressed for a leveller before half time, Dave Young clipping a shot just wide from a corner and Kieran Lugsden’s shot being blocked by a body and heading for a corner. However, at the break confidence was high that with the wind at their backs GNE would prevail in the second half, despite James Short’s shot just flying the wrong side of the post on the whistle.

However, despite the vast majority of the possession post-break the Hillmen didn’t create very much with it. Josh Brizzell showed the way with a strong 35 yard shot that Cooper could only parry, but recovered before the strikers met the rebound. However, in-between the brandishing of yellow cards there were very few shots on goal to follow, with most of the action on the flanks ending in crosses that the Marine defence mopped up.

Sean Myler brought a good save from Hall when shooting low at the near post, and Brizzell again showed the way to goal with two shots in close succession, both from outside the box, one neatly saved by Cooper and the other just wide.

However with 10 minutes to go a free kick on half way was pumped into the Glossop box. Hall came to meet it, but made a mess of his punch, the weak effort falling to the feet of Alan Burton who simply tapped into the unguarded net.

In injury time Brizzell got his reward when deftly chipping a loose ball over Cooper to pull a goal back. These are often called consolation goals, but it was no consolation to Glossop North End.