Guisborough Town 1-2 South Park Rangers (North Riding Senior Cup Semi-Final)

Match Report

Over the course of their often illustrious 50 year history, Guisborough Town have often emerged giant-killers from numerous glorious games down the years.

But tonight at the KGV Stadium the roles were reversed on the Priorymen as local Teesside team South Park Rangers produced a massive giant-killing shock of their own. Rangers scored twice in the last three minutes to earn themselves a lucrative showpiece place in this year’s North Riding Senior Cup (NRSC) Final against Scarborough Athletic.

Guisborough straight-talking Manager Steve Bell didn’t mince his words afterwards when he commented:

I’m just embarrassed by this defeat and the players should be ashamed of themselves. Tonight’s game was a great opportunity to get to the NRSC Final for the second season running and we put in an abysmal performance like that.

It was half-hearted, tepid with nobody taking responsibility out on the pitch. It’s simply not good enough and my apologies go to all our brilliant supporters and volunteers at our club who work so hard.

That said, we need to move on to next Saturday with a hard game at Ashington, but tonight’s defeat has been a tough one to take.

The match started off brightly enough for Guisborough as they took a deserved 11th minute lead through centre forward Mikey McGee who tapped home from close range after leading scorer Cole Kiernan got to the by-line and put over a good cross to his strike partner.

However, despite that boost of an early goal, Guisborough failed to capitalise for the rest of the first half as several chances went begging through a combination of bad luck and imprecise finishing. After the interval, Guisborough flattered to deceive as more chances were frittered away and from midway through the half onwards Rangers started to feature more prominently.

Having knocked out Marske United and Northallerton in previous rounds, Rangers had already proved they should not be underestimated. And sure enough as their confidence grew, Rangers drew level in the 87th minute when a James Tattersfield long range effort went in off the far post for 1-1.

Then with penalties looming, Rangers unbelievably grabbed a dramatic 89th minute winner when Tattersfield tucked home his second goal from close range following a corner a corner to clinch a memorable 2-1 for the underdogs from the North Riding Football League, two steps below Guisborough’s status.

Report: Bill Perfitt