Guisborough Town 4-0 Crook Town

Match Report

What an amazing difference just couple of weeks can make in football as Guisborough Town’s confidence plummeted alarmingly as well as their league position following a series of disappointing defeats.

One of those defeats came only 10 days ago against Crook Town – yesterday’s visitors to the KGV Stadium – and that was followed by a 3-1 derby drubbing at 10-man Redcar Athletic last week.

Following those results, Guisborough Manager Steve Bell was relieved his side had no game in midweek to allow his players and indeed himself and Assistant Manager Paul Crager the opportunity to “take a break, re-set and go again” yesterday against Crook.

And after a thoroughly convincing 4-0 win over Crook to avenge the previous poor 2-1 defeat at Crook, Guisborough team boss Steve revealed the ‘cunningplan’ he and Assistant Paul had hatched to recapture their side’s early season promise.

After yesterday’s game he said

Following our recent slump in form and confidence, we asked the lads to do something that is really, really hard to do.
We asked them to put the last few games completely out of their minds and treat today’s latest game against Crook as if it were the very first game of the season.
Before the game there was a tremendous buzz in the dressing room – just as if it were the start of the season all over again.
The boys came out of that dressing room determined to get on the front foot right from the off and they did just that.  The energy throughout the team was fantastic and that allowed us to quickly get control of the game and at last the goals flowed again!
It was really pleasing to see every single player playing their part in what ultimately was a great 4-0 win.
We are only human – including me and Paul – and most teams experience a drop in confidence at some point in a season so I was massively pleased for the lads after yesterday’s all-round excellent team performance.
Hopefully we can now kick on further and use this as a springboard to help revitalise our season.

This impressive result and more importantly the three points gained literally catapulted the Priorymen back up the league table from tenth position to fifth.  

As keen Guisborough fan Mark Cowan – son of the club’s Vice Chairman Don – astutely remarked, the fact that the cluster of teams in the top half of the table had been beating one another recently meant very few points were actually separating many of them.

STAMPING THEIR AUTHORITY

Therefore just one victory could radically alter the look of the table. And so it certainly proved to be the case after this latest Crook game!

Right from the kick-off the Priorymen looked a completely different side, passing the ball around beautifully and rapidly stamping their authority on the game.

And they surged ahead after only 14 minutes when top scorer Cole Kiernan latched on to a through ball that wasn’t cut out by the Crook defence and he raced forward and drew the Crook ‘keeper perfectly before planting the ball beautifully into the far corner for 1-0 to the Priorymen.

In recent games, one of Guisborough’s major problems has been not cementing early leads with more goals to make certain of winning – but this time the Priorymen seemed in no mood to let things slip once again and they deservedly doubled their lead just six minutes later with a fine individual goal from their wing wizard Ben Jackson.

Jackson broke into the Crook box and weaved one way then the other before firing superbly into the far left corner of the net for 2-0 and that’s how it stayed through to half-time.

In the second half Crook rallied briefly and were unlucky in the 50th minute when a superb strike from 30 yards out by midfielder Kieran Parnaby thundered off the Guisborough crossbar and bounced to safety.

But in truth Guisborough continued their stranglehold on the game and were allowing Crook precious little time or space on the ball and it was no surprise when the Priorymen stormed into a 3-0 lead with an absolute scorching goal from midfielder Joe Scaife-Wheatley in the 65th minute.

There was some great interplay by Guisborough around the edge of the Crook penalty area which culminated in winger Jack Blackford laying the ball back to Scaife-Wheatley who unleashed a thunderous pile-driver from 25 yards out and it went like a bullet into the top corner.

IMPECCABLE PERFORMANCE

Guisborough then rounded off an impeccable performance with a fourth goal in the 89th minute when ‘Jinky Jacko’ Ben Jackson was upended in the box and Kiernan stepped up to score with the perfect spot kick right into the corner of the net, giving the Crook ‘keeper no chance.

Guisborough’s outstanding defender James ‘Sidders’ Dillon was made the Guisborough Brewery-sponsored Man of the Match but in truth it could have gone to almost any one of the Guisborough players who contributed superbly to an all-round fine team performance.

The Priorymen have a great chance to further consolidate their league position next Saturday, 29 October (KO 3pm) when they travel over the North York Moors to Northern League newcomers Pickering Town who are currently languishing 12 places below them in 17th position.  

Guisborough will be running a coach for players and supporters to Pickering – keep an eye out on Twitter for more details in due course.

Report: Bill Perfitt