Stockton Town 2-0 Guisborough Town

Match Report

Guisborough Town Manager Nathan Haslam was highly delighted after seeing his side more than match Northern Premier League side Stockton Town for the first hour of the match on Tuesday night.

Once again – as at the game at Thornaby last Saturday – Guisborough were hampered by the loss key players even before the Stockton match actually got underway.

First, big target man Jason Blackburn had to pull out after going down with a tweak during the warm-up and Mason McNeill failed a fitness test on his ankle. Then on top of that recent new signing Ben Errington needed to be subbed at half-time because of a tight calf.

A somewhat frustrated Nathan commented: “We didn’t want to take any risks with any of the players that we were forced to pull out of the game at literally the last minute, which disrupted our game plans.

“So what started as a night with healthy numbers soon became a much-reduced number that certainly stretched us throughout the game itself.

“But I thought we were outstanding in the first half – the lads were very good indeed and we got exactly what we needed out of the game.

“We produced some outstanding passages of play, with some excellent combination work against what was a very good, strong Stockton side.

“We contained Stockton very well indeed and limited them to very few chances while we created good chances ourselves. Overall, a brilliant first half for us

“In the second half we had to totally change our system due to Ben Errington having to come off, which left us having lots of square pegs in round holes but in spite of this we acquitted ourselves really well again for the first 15 minutes of the second half.

“A VERY WORTHWHILE EXERCISE”

“Then from around the hour mark things changed and the two Stockton goals that we conceded were the result of two mistakes when we were our own worst enemy but again I put this down mainly to fitness issues against a side who had superior numbers to play with by that stage.

“So, overall we’ve lost two nil but tonight was a very worthwhile exercise for us with some very pleasing work from the lads and I can only be very happy with much of what we have displayed out on the pitch tonight – so a lot of credit to the boys for that.

“We now move onwards to the game against Marske at the KGV on Saturday

happy with our work so far and we hope to raise that again when we take on our neighbours Marske.

“Fitness-wise we are definitely improving based on how we were at Thornaby last Saturday and as I’ve said before this is what pre-season is all about. From the lads’ point of view we got a lot from tonight,” added a highly satisfied Nathan.

Report: Bill Perfitt