Guisborough Town 3 – 0 West Allotment Celtic

Match Report

Guisborough Town’s livewire attacking midfielder Brad Plant bagged a brace of goals as the Priorymen scored an impressively comprehensive 3-0 victory over bottom-of-the-table West Allotment Celtic.

Plant got Guisborough off to a flier with a fine goal after only three minutes, latching on to a superb Gary Redman through ball to round the Celtic ‘keeper and slot home into an empty net.

Guisborough then proceeded to completely dominate the rest of the half but they had to wait until three minutes before the break with a beautifully-worked move set up initially by their industrious skipper JJ Bartliff who passed to Plant who found Steve Roberts to finish off the move clinically to make it 2-0.

After a long run of serious injuries, it’s great to see Roberts getting his mojo back!  This latest goal saw Steve climb up a place to 11th in the all-time Guisborough goal-scoring list with a total of 52 goals (and counting!).

In the second half, with incessantly fine and misty rain making it look like a November evening rather than an August one, Celtic to their credit came more into the game but Guisborough’s immaculate central back three of James Rowe, James Dillon and Nick Hood dealt superbly with everything Celtic threw at them.

And on the odd occasion Celtic found a way through like when Callum Larmouth got in a good shot in the 76th minute there was Guisborough ‘keeper Robbie Dean to brilliantly palm the ball away to safety.

But an exceptionally fit-looking Guisborough finished strongly and in the 85th minute Plant made it 3-0 with a slightly deflected shot to make the scoreline more accurately reflect Guisborough’s dominance.

This all-round impressive victory – with the every Guisborough player turning in eight’s or nine’s out of ten performances – propelled the Priorymen up to eighth in the table with nine points from five league games.

After the game a delighted Guisborough Manager Steve Bell commented:  “I thought the lads were very good tonight.  We started the game on the front foot and scored early which always helps.

“The lads were very positive both in and out of possession and we fully deserved to be at least 2-0 up by half-time.

FURTHER IMPROVE

“In the second half I thought Celtic had a bit of a go at us but without causing us too much trouble and in the main we managed the game pretty well and the third goal just finished them off and rounded the night off impressively for us,” added Steve.

The match attendance on a pretty unpleasant wet night was a very creditable 241. Guisborough Town are very grateful indeed to Match Sponsors Eston Autos Ltd and also Match Ball sponsors Russell Group.

Guisborough have a great chance to further improve their league position when they at home to early table-toppers Newton Aycliffe at the KGV on Saturday, 28 August at the KGV Stadium (KO 3pm).

Then two days later on Bank Holiday Monday, 30 August (NB early KO at 11am) Guisborough travel to nearby Northallerton hoping to continue their excellent recent form.

Report: Bill Perfitt