Redcar Athletic 2-0 Guisborough Town

Match Report

Lady Luck definitely deserted Guisborough Town in their key Teesside derby at fellow promotion rivals Redcar Athletic on Saturday when a harsh sending off and a bad injury to the in-form Joe Pickett conspired to produce a disappointing defeat.

The Priorymen suffered a cruel blow after just 19 minutes of the first half when key attacking midfielder Joe Pickett suffered a recurrence of an ankle injury and had to be replaced by Jack Bailey.

It was the worst possible outcome to a great week personally for Joe whose superb recent form was deservedly recognised with the award of a contract to the end of the season with an option to extend for another season.

So after the setback of losing Joe, worse was to follow in the 26th minute when right back Dylan McAvoy was very harshly sent off for what looked like a full-blooded but fair-looking tackle on Redcar’s Bryan Taylor.

It was a pivotal flashpoint that Guisborough Manager Steve Conroy claimed “ruined the potential for a great game.”

From our position, it looked like two players went in for a challenge and several of the Redcar players shouted loud enough to influence the red card decision. Unfortunately for us, it was clever gamesmanship that convinced the decision maker to send Dylan off.

Steve, however, had no hard feelings over the outcome of the match.

We didn’t quite have the rub of the today, losing both Joe and later Jack Bailey to injury as well as Dylan to the red card. But Redcar Athletic clicked as a team today and were very deserving of their win.

On Joe’s injury Steve commented:

Joe has a recurring ankle injury that we thought had been overcome. But he’s struck a shot during the game and the pain and swelling that followed meant he could not continue. He’ll be a doubt for our scheduled League Cup match at West Allotment Celtic on Tuesday, but hopefully a few days’ rest will see him back for next Saturday at home to Newcastle Blue Star.

DOUBLE BLOW

After the double blow of losing both Dylan and Joe with barely half of the first half gone, Redcar rubbed salt in the Priorymen’s wounds by scoring twice in the last 10 minutes of the half.

First Oscar Fletcher hit a vicious cross shot from the right and although Guisborough goalkeeper Robert Dean dived acrobatically to get a hand to the ball it went in off the far post for 1-0 to the Redcar Steelman on 35 minutes.

Then a minute before half-time Redcar doubled their lead when Mark Anderson’s shot from the edge of the penalty area seemed to bend just insider the post with Guisborough ‘keeper Dean unsighted.

In the second half, Guisborough made a double substitution with winger Muzzy Abdullahi and forward Dylan Gnajio coming and both players made a very positive impact.

Despite their numerical disadvantage, the Priorymen were more than matching Redcar and in the 74th minute were desperately unlucky not to pull a goal back when Muzzy struck a beautiful half-volley towards the corner of the net but Redcar ‘keeper Mazfari reacted brilliantly to push the ball on to the far post.

Had that effort gone in, who knows what influence that could have had on the final result? Gnajio was particularly impressive with his strong all-round play and tough tackling

Guisborough ‘keeper Deano pulled off several good saves in the second half to prevent Redcar from adding to their lead but overall the much-weakened Priorymen did exceptionally well to effectively draw the second half 0-0.

Guisborough defenders Matty Crust and James Frazer were rocks in the Guisborough defence while Joey Smith impressed in midfield battling against all the odds in front of a bumper derby crowd of 517.

The loss of valuable points put a damaging dent in Guisborough’s play-off hopes but next Tuesday, 21 January they have a night off League action when they travel to West Allotment Celtic for their postponed League Cup match.

Report: Bill Perfitt