Newcastle Blue Star 0-2 Guisborough Town

Match Report

Guisborough Town bounced back from their disappointing midweek FA Cup defeat against Kendal Town by putting on an impressive performance and registering a convincing league victory at Division One newcomers Newcastle Blue Star on Saturday.

A delighted Guisborough Town Manager Steve Bell commented after the game:

This was a really good win today. We were a bit leggy and lacklustre for most of the first half and it was only thanks to our ‘keeper Deano that we didn’t concede.

The Joe Pickett gets us 1-0 up at half-time and although we were leading I said some serious words to the players during the interval and the lads came back out and were outstanding in the second half and probably deserved to win by a bigger margin than 2-0.

A bit like we found at Kendal last week, Blue Star will be a tough place to go to this season so this was a really good three points. Very pleased overall with the lads.

The Priorymen shaded the first half and went 1-0 ahead in the 39th minute when midfielder Joe Pickett made the important breakthrough by switching the ball to his right foot and scoring in off the post.

It took Guisborough only 10 minutes of the second half to double their lead when striker Jason Blackburn first of all put in a tremendous defensive challenge on 49 minutes and then in the 55th minute he scored with an outstanding chip from fully 30 yards out.

TREMENDOUS SHIFTS!

Blackburn, who put in a superb afternoon’s work, was substituted in the 78th minute to make way for Callum Mallia to make his debut for the Priorymen. Ten minutes later Pickett was also subbed after putting in a typically tremendous shift.

Despite the cushion of a two-goal lead in the last 10 minutes Blue Star rallied strongly and Guisborough once again had ‘keeper Dean to thank for making three unbelievably good saves.

In time added on Guisborough full back Callum Martin got a second yellow card to be sent off. The number of yellow cards handed out to Guisborough players was of real concern and the Priorymen definitely felt hard done by to run up such a high tally of yellows for some seemingly fairly innocuous challenges.

The victory, in front of a crowd of 216, lifted Guisborough up to seventh in the table.

Guisborough’s next game is this coming Wednesday, 14 August against Crook Town at the Kevin Edward KGV Stadium (KO 7.45pm).

Report: Bill Perfitt