Rain more or less dictated where we were to get our midweek "fix" ..with some games called off and some in doubt, we decided to go to Coronation Park - the game was never in doubt, and their website called the pitch "perfectly playable". Arrived at the ground - had to park on the street - almost 400 in attendance again so all the available car parking spaces had been taken.
The nice young lady with the legs was selling the programmes again -- she is rather pretty, and is rather popular with the young ball boys at CP - one of whom spent the whole of the second half staring at her behind with his mouth wide open!!
I digress - we opted to stand in a corner of the Plumptre terrace and were afforded a great view - and we were ideally placed to see both first half goals. The first goal came from Hednesford centre-half Marshall on 35 - he receved the ball 40 yards from goal and was given far too much time and space, allowing him to set himself and fire a fierce drive past Goddard in the Eastwood goal. The shot was arrow straight and was past the stand-in keeper before he could react. No faulting the keeper, but no-one challenged the big defender as he lined up the effort.
The Badgers were only behind for two minutes though. Ther linesman near to us was undecided about whether to give a corner or not, when it clearly was (the Ref gave the decision eventually). Shaw's initial kick was cleared, but the ball sailed straight back to him on the right - he had no hesitation in lobbing the ball back into the box -- as it happened everyone misjudged the flight of the ball, and it ended up nestling in the back of the net. H-T 1-1
Good first period played at 100 mph - but the officials were poor throughout the half, and they were even worse in the second period...missing all sorts of all sorts and letting the Hednesford no. 4 get away with murder...shirt pulling, wrestling and even elbowing Rhead - on this occasion the ref was 10 yards from the incident and waved play on..bottled it big time.
Anyway, Eastwood scored what proved to be the winning goal just 6 or 7 minutes into the second half. Dunning's corner from the left was prodded home eventually by Holmes after a bit of a goal-line scramble ..
Hednesford poured forward to try and get the equaliser, but the Eastwood back-line were solid enough, and the away team resorted to shooting from long range, failing to trouble keeper Goddard over-much. F-T 2-1
Decent game played between 2 decent teams - I think both will be in the mix at the end of the season. Kev noted a distinct lack of "fun" at CP, and I suppose I have to agree, but with a reported wage bill of £9k per week some of the fun is bound to disappear as the pressure to do well takes over. Still, we both enjoyed the game and will be back at CP soon...
Wednesday -- Kimberly Town v Gornal Athletic
Saturday -- Heanor Tn v Greenwood Meadows
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