Guisborough Town 0-1 Carlisle City (Isuzu FA Vase First Round)

Match Report

A wickedly-deflected goal conceded in the second minute of time added on dashed Guisborough Town’s hopes in the Isuzu FA Vase for another season at the Kevin Edward KGV Stadium on Saturday.

Just as the match seemed destined to be decided on penalties with the score deadlocked at 0-0, Carlisle striker Josh Simpson hit a fierce drive from just inside the Guisborough penalty area which seemed destined towards the right hand post.

Guisborough’s ever-alert goalkeeper Robert Dean dived acrobatically to his left and looked to have the shot covered but it took a massive deflection and ended up in the opposite side of the net.

So the curtain came down on a potentially lucrative FA Vase run for the Priorymen but, in truth, they had only themselves to blame for a below-par performance which was good in parts but never really achieved a level of consistency to emerge victorious.

It was one of those ‘games of two halves’ with a lively Carlisle team featuring strongly overall in the first half whereas Guisborough came out with much more purpose after the interval and for the first 25 minutes of the second half dominated proceedings without ever quite translating that into goals.

After the game a disappointed Guisborough Town Manager Steve Connolly commented:

The game wasn’t a classic, with two teams trying to cope with missing players through injury and overall it was Carlisle who managed things slightly better than us. We had dominant spells at the beginning of both halves but just didn’t manage to convert the half chances we created, mostly from set-pieces.

There was an element of luck in the big deflection for their winner, but credit to them for fighting right to the end. After our winning performance the week before with 10 men against Seaham, we were disappointed not to be able to reproduce that type of intensity against Carlisle.

Against Carlisle, Guisborough opened the game the brighter and on 10 minutes recently re-signed KGV favourite Ben Jackson made a great run from the right wing, cutting inside in a trademark weaving run and found Kurt Howes in the middle but his strike from the edge of the penalty area was parried away by the Carlisle ‘keeper.

However, a lively Carlisle side was coming more into the game and Guisborough were indebted to ‘keeper Robert Dean just after the half hour mark for hurling himself to his left to palm away a goal-bound Carlisle shot.

On 39 minutes Joe Pickett sent over an inviting out-swinging corner and centre back James Frazer got up to send in a good header which just cleared the Carlisle bar.

Just before half-time Guisborough had a genuine shout for a penalty when Howes was went sprawling after contact from a Carlisle defender in the penalty area but the referee waved aside strong penalty appeals from the Priorymen.

So Guisborough went in at half-time probably slightly relieved to be still on level terms against a Carlisle side that had had the better of the play overall.

But after the interval Guisborough came out in much more determined fashion and in the 48th minute midfielder Joey Smith saw an effort cleared off the Carlisle line.

Then in the 63rd minute defender James Frazer – who had another excellent game – joined in the Guisborough attack and following a goalmouth melee he got in a shot which cannoned back off the post before being cleared.

That was the closest Guisborough came to scoring and as the game appeared to be petering out towards a 0-0 stalemate to be followed by a penalty shoot-out, Carlisle grabbed an unexpected late winner.

HUGE DEFLECTION

They launched a last-ditch attack and Josh Simpson hit a fierce shot from around the edge of the area. Guisborough ‘keeper Dean dived and looked to have the shot covered but it took a huge deflection and ricocheted into the other side of the Guisborough goal.

It was a heart-breaking moment for the Priorymen who had made a big effort to haul themselves back into contention in the second half. But overall, Carlisle probably marginally deserved their last-gasp victory in front of a KGV crowd of 219.

Guisborough now look ahead to next midweek when they travel to North Shields on Wednesday, 23 October (KO 7.30pm) for what is always a tough fixture and next Wednesday’s is expected to be no different with Shields sitting just one place above Guisborough who are 10th in the table.

Report: Bill Perfitt
Photos: Dan Clark