Maltby Main 6 v Denaby United 0 - Sheff & Hallam Senior Cup R1

Ball boys

Wednesday 5th October 2016
Sheffield & Hallamshire Senior Cup First Round
At Muglet Lane, Maltby
Maltby Main (4) 6
Jordan Poole 18
Jordan Snodin 39, 76
Derrelle Goodison 21
Ryan Carroll 43 pen
Connor Gregg 69
Denaby United (0) 0
Admission £5. Programme £1.50.
Attendance 34 plus a good few who bunked in over the wall
behind the visiting team dug out. We were all young once!

It's a Maltby tradition for the U13 team to Christen the away
dug out seats before County Cup matches at Muglet Lane

After sadly going into decline and vanishing off of the local football landscape altogether for a while in 2002, since their rebirth in 2011, Denaby United are steadily progressing, with an aim of becoming a force again in local non league circles and rekindling the flames of a bygone age, which can be traced back as far as 1895, when they played under the name of Denaby Parish Church.
If the conviction, unstinting effort and unswerving dedication of those who are carrying the proud name of Denaby United forward towards a new era is anything to go by, they are well on course to achieving their aims, given a realistic timescale.
United currently play in the Sheffield & Hallamshire County Senior League (a step 7 competition), having previously plied their trade in the Doncaster Senior League.
Tonight demonstrated to the visitors, the kind of level they will need to aspire to, when the time comes to push on for promotion to the NCEL league infrastructure.

In  his programme notes, Maltby's chairman Wilf Race (himself a former Denaby United player), talked of how he used to climb in over the wall at Tickhill Square to watch tonight's visitors in action while he was still in his teens, which is probably why he was turning a blind eye to the dozen or so local youths who did exactly the same thing under the cover of darkness at Muglet Lane tonight.
We've all done it haven't we?
To the untrained eye these lads (they're mostly young alpha males) are freeloading scallywags, but some time further down the line, once they've developed an infinity with their surroundings, these 'reprobates' will become the future supporters of local non league football clubs, i.e. the next generation of lifeblood, the paying spectators and willing volunteers.
Trust me on this one, I have a lot of inside information and knowledge of this particular subject.

 

In my teens I knew scores of local grounds (and not all of them were necessarily non league ones) that you could bunk into for 'nowt... but now, several decades on, although my dimensions prevent me from squeezing through gaps, crawling under corrugated iron fences and scaling walls anyway, I am more than happy to put my hand in my pocket and pay, retrospectively, for my pre-pubescent sins.
Putting something back in so to speak.
Sadly I never found to time to finish off my book "Bunking In... watching football for nothing", when I was a resourceful youngster, because we were always too busy: dodging train guards and leaving Retford Station via the ridiculously small wall at the opposite end of the platform from the ticket collector (and it's still there now kids, but don't get caught!) to ever find the time to bugger about boring you all half to death with my half baked opinions, poor grasp of grammatical correctiveness and stream of consciousness unhinged rambling.  

It was fairly obvious, as the Miners went on the attack from the outset, that it was always going to be a case of when Maltby would score tonight, not if.

And though Denaby weren't without several attacking moves of their own, it was, in the main (you can have all of these puns for free), Spencer Fearn's side who dominated, as they approached the game in exactly the same way that they would any other and gave their visitors the due respect that they deserved.

With the Maltby Under 13 team out full voice yet again, the home side got the game under way, playing towards Outgang Lane and could quite easily have been three goals to the good inside the opening five minutes.

Ben Parker muscled his way into the Maltby area, but Dan Reilly got goal side of and diverted the ball out of harms way.

The opening goal duly arrived on 18 minutes, when Ryan Carroll swiveled in mid air and forced a save out of Ben Priestley as he hooked an overhead kick towards the Denaby goal, but the visitors keeper could only claw the ball into the path of Jordan Poole, who added the finishing touch from close range.

Three minutes later Derrelle Goodison combined with Poole and Josh Schofield on the right hand side of the visitors area and latched onto a return pass from the latter to crash the ball past Priestley from twelve yards.

It's just over six miles to the visitors ground from Muglet Lane, via the winding roads to Conisborough, but the distance between the two divisions that these two sides compete in, was becoming increasingly more evident as the game wore on and was proving to be two giant steps for mankind as Denaby struggled to get into the game.

Priestley denied Schofield twice, while both Goodison and Poole had efforts that went off target.

Ainsley Finney and Steve Ellor countered at pace after Denaby cleared their lines from yet another Maltby push forward, but Jack Greeves was taking no chances and he intercepted Ellor's run and launched his clearance out of the ground.

But 'the Miners' turned the screw again on 39 minutes, when Schofield crossed the ball into the visitors six yard box and Priestley's defence deserted him as Jordan Snodin planted an unchallenged downward header into the back of the goal to make it 3-0.

With the Maltby back line presenting an obstinate wall of defiance whenever it looked as if Denaby might be on the verge of reducing the arrears, Finney and Cory Goodwin peppered Louis Jones goals with shots from range, but Reilly and Nicky Darker were on hand to put a foot in and block both goal attempts.

Denaby had a penalty appeal and a shout for "Handball!", when Ellor's cross hit a Maltby player on his arm. Memo to MMFC, get some white numbers on your shirts so old men with fading eyesight, AKA me, can identify your players more easily during midweek games, but the referee didn't see anything wrong with what I am assuming he must have called as a "Ball to hand" non punishable transgression and play moved quickly from end to end and the visitors last line of defence, Aiden Oakley had no option but to break down yet another Maltby attack, by committing a foul just outside the goal area. 

But the match officials thought otherwise and a penalty was awarded, which Carroll drilled past Priestley to give the home side a comfortable four goal cushion at the break.

HT: Maltby Main 4 v Denaby United 0

The extremely fortunate old lass who gets to spend lots of quality time with me (when there are no football matters to attend to. AKA at least a few hours per week) was on a mission of mercy at Bassetlaw Hospital tonight and texted me at half time to ask if it would be possible for me to pick her up on my way home at around 10pm. 

I replied: "Of course, even if there is extra time here tonight, I will leave anyway because you are my number one priority always and football is just a game".

Even though there was a zero likelihood of Denaby scoring four second half goals, or even of Maltby not increasing their lead; football is a funny old game and you never know, eh!?

My commitment to my relationship knows no boundaries, even though I 'accidentally' put my phone on silent mode for the duration of the second half.

But as for her... I ask you, since when has Worksop (that's where Bassetlaw Hospital is) been on the way home from Maltby to Retford? 

Tsk! She's a selfish chuff piece at times... and then some. 

The damage had already been done in the opening forty five minutes and Maltby, understandably perhaps, seemed to take their foot off the gas after the break, or perhaps after reshuffling their pack during the half time team talk, Denaby were now dealing with their hosts more effectively.

Either way, it was Denaby who went on the attack first from the restart, but Louis Jones was off his line quickly to prevent Ellor from putting a dent in the scoreline, by heading the ball away just outside his goal area.

Reilly and Goodison both went close for 'the Miners', but although Ellor continued to look half decent for the visitors, they still didn't look like they were going to find their way to goal tonight.

Maltby scored a fifth in the 69th minute, when Priestley struggled to clear a cross and Goodison nudged the ball to Connor Gregg, who will never get a simpler chance to score again in his life as he rolled the ball into an empty net, while the Denaby keeper laid on the ground wondering where the hell his defence had gone again.

Goodison went close again but was thwarted by Priestley, who got down well to deny Poole another goal.

The rhythm of the game was broken up somewhat as the substitutes entered the fray, but the home sides captain Darker, rolled a sideways pass to Snodin, from a free kick all of thirty yards and he thumped an unstoppable shot past Priestley.

Phew! I was relieved that I definitely wouldn't have to leave early and miss any extra time now.

And though I am taking up a (very) temporary job with Maltby Main any time soon, so I am always likely to be ever so slightly biased about their results, I hoped that they had punished Denaby enough for one night now, after capitalising on several defensive errors, because the visitors were still putting the effort in and didn't really deserve to be on the end of an even bigger score.

BUY IT NOW! From your local NCEL club.
@TheBootifulGame #2
Contains 2 pages about Maltby manager
Spencer Fearn & 3 pages written by yours 
truly, but don't let that put you off buying one.

Ben Priestley had pulled off several blinding saves over the course of the night, while Steve Ellor, ably assisted by Cory Goodwin and Ainsley Finney had made a good impression, but ultimately, the home side had too much in reserve for United and comfortably made it through to the second round of the Sheffield & Hallamshire Senior Cup. Maltby had played the right sort of game at the right tempo, but as I was actually in the same room as that nice Mr Fearn when he was prepping his players before kick off, it would be wholly inappropriate of me to make any further comment to that end.

FT: Maltby Main 6 v Denaby United 0

Denaby face a trip to Millmoor Juniors in the Pete's Patisserie County Senior Football League, Premier Division at the weekend, while Maltby Main face Rainworth Miners Welfare in what promises to be a close game in the Toolstation NCEL Premier Division.

One final thing, their are currently opportunities available for players to join in with Maltby Main Under 13s. Interested parties should send direct message to @cdonfielding via Twitter, for more details.