Guisborough Town 1-0 Boro Rangers

Match Report

Of course it’s early days yet – but already Guisborough Town are the only Northern League Division one team with a 100% record after winning their second game in a row with a 1-0 victory over Teesside derby rivals Boro Rangers at the Kevin Edward KGV Stadium on Wednesday night.

Apart from the Priorymen who have six points from their first two games, but amazingly all the other sides in the table have already dropped points with a posse of teams just behind Guisborough but all of them on four points.

Guisborough Manager Nathan Haslam is certainly not getting carried away by this incredibly hard fought performance against a very strong Boro Rangers side in front of a bumper crowd of 453.

After the game he commented: “This was an excellent three points from what was a tough game for us. A little bit of class from Fergie on the free kick that’s proved the winner for us.

“I think in the first half we were good value for our 1-0 lead, we created lots of chances and we were bright throughout that first 45.

“One nil is a precarious scoreline and in the second half in particular Rangers put a lot of pressure on us and threw the kitchen sink at us. But we soaked it up and held firm. Sometimes you’ve got to win ugly and that’s what we’ve done to a degree tonight,” added Nathan.

The crucial moment of the game came in the 22nd minute when Guisborough were awarded a free kick 25 yards out on the right of the Rangers penalty area.

Joe Ferguson stepped up to take it and shaped as if he was going to cross to the far post.

BEWILDERED-LOOKING!

But he deceived Rangers ‘keeper Jack Norton by driving the ball straight and true and it flew like a missile past a bewildered-looking Norton, nestling beautifully into the back of the net for 1-0 to the Priorymen.

After an end to end first half played at breath-taking pace throughout, Rangers pressed Guisborough hard for long periods of the second half but in truth they struggled to really penetrate the resolute Guisborough defence.

On the few occasions they managed to get through, Guisborough ‘keeper Ryan Catterick was equal to Rangers’ efforts, pulling off two outstanding saves in particular to keep Boro at bay.

Rangers did get the ball in the Guisborough net in the 87th minute but the referee spotted a clear hand ball and the ‘goal’ was rightly disallowed.

Back to Guisborough Manager Nathan who continued: “We’re going through something of a development phase at the moment. A lot of the stuff we are trying is still very new to the lads.

“But what I can say is that we are very good at soaking pressure up when we need to. We organise well, we communicate excellently and we’ve got a good clean sheet out of tonight’s game.

“Football is all about getting three points – and often it doesn’t really matter how you do it. It’s nice if you can play good football and we certainly do that in spells. But as we also showed at Easington on Saturday football is also about defending and we definitely do that really well.

“Fair play to Boro Rangers tonight, they gave us a hard game and threw everything at it but as I’ve said before our excellent defence was very resolute,” added Nathan.

The match was kindly sponsored by Kevin Edward, a fantastic supporter of the club.

A special thanks also to the unsung heroes who are Guisborough’s outstanding group of groundstaff volunteers, who work incredibly hard getting the KGV pitch in tip top condition both throughout the pre-season period and once the season starts in earnest. Well done to everyone involved, your sterling work is much-appreciated.

Report: Bill Perfitt