N C East Prem Div                               Tue 6 Sept 2005

GLASSHOUGHTON WELFARE     1        ARNOLD TOWN         3       

A STUTTERING BITTY PERFORMANCE  AGAINST ROBUST VISITORS, IN WHICH ALL THE GOALS CONCEDED BY WELFARE CONTAINED AN ELEMENT OF SLOPPY DEFENDING.

The home defence lived dangerously from the start and although Newton put the first chance of the game in to the hands of the visitors keeper Lance Walker, it came as no surprise when Town opened the scoring, a combination of a poor clearance by Welfare’s Carl Codd putting his colleagues on the back foot, and a slip by the unfortunate keeper allowed Chris Hall to dart in and put Arnold in front after 15 mins.

Welfare replied with a series of corner kicks but just as it appeared that they were back in contention an attempted back pass by Newton shortly before the interval left Codd stranded and the pacy Dave Wilkins nipped in to add to the earlier score.

From the interval Welfare resumed with some determination and were rewarded when Carl Fox latched on to a though ball to beat Walker and put the home men back in contention.

Moments later and at a crucial stage of the game Welfare were denied what was clearly the most blatant penalty when Remo Nesa was scythed down, which amazingly everyone in the ground except apparently the match official witnessed.

Welfare continued to battle but in the closing stages were dealt a body blow when Paul Mattison and Darren Leech got in a mix up allowing the ball to run free to Watkins who was brought down by Codd who received an automatic dismissal and Watkins easily beat stand in keeper Paul Mattison from the spot to kill the game off and leave Welfare towards the foot of the table with only the single win from five outings.

Team:  Carl Codd, Gareth Liversedge, Paul Mattison, Richard Dobson, Kieron O’Brien, Darren Leach (Darren Mulloney) , Remo Nesa (Stuart Holmes) , Dave Cooke, Paul Arkle (Julien Wilkes), Mark Newton, Carl Fox.