Barton Town OB 2 Bridlington Town 3

The return fixture to one of our closest rivalries, saw us travel to their place on the other side of Hull, well its on the other side of the Humber, which meant a £6 return journey just on the Humber bridge before we even started.

As has been mentioned here before,  Barton have several ex-Brid players amongst their ranks, today there was Ash Dexter, Danny Buttle, Anthony Bowser, Tom Lee (injured), Gareth Owen, Scott Philips & Dave Bramley and possibly one or two others.

There was a good contingency from Brid, probably a good 40-50 fans out of 124, to cheer the lads on. Barton were no push overs, them beating us twice this year testifies to that. Conditions and the pitch were good, a slight wind whilst a bit chilly.

Barton take the lead, probably with their first effective shot, when Bowsley shoots from just outside the side part of the penalty area, straight into the top far corner of the goal, giving Wilbur no chance.

Until that point we had had several chances and had most of the play, and after the goal was no different. Bennett played some excellent 1-2′s with Greening a couple of times before he shot at goal, it was saved by Bramley, and followed up by Hoggy to slot the ball home from a tight angle. We had lots of opportunities, but thanks to the defending of  Dexter and the keeping of Bramley, keeping us at bay. The second came from a free kick, which was given away easily by Dexter, it was floated into the box, flicked on by Dexter and bundled in by their number 4 (with Hoggy in close proximity), the third came from a corner and was well headed in by Hoggy.

On 93 Dexter gets their second, but I have to say the scoreline flatters them, we had huge swathes of territory and possession and could have won by more. Several players had a great game today, but my stand out player was Jenkinson, who has slotted in extremely well at centre half, and commanded the back line really well, and with Palms and Suddaby in great form, made it hard for Phillips and Owen to have any impact in the game.

Well done lads. if we win 10 of our last 12 games, the title is ours.

NCEL Prem		P	Pts	+/-
1	Bridlington	26	59	38
2	Retford	28	59	25
3	Staveley MW	27	56	21
4	Winterton	29	53	17
5	Scarborough	28	52	34
6	Tadcaster	27	52	20
7	Parkgate	26	51	27
8	Brighouse	27	51	23
9	Thackley	29	46	7

The result of the day though, came at Cambridge Utd’s Abbey Stadium, where my “other” non-league team Wealdstone, reached the semi finals of the FA Trophy by beating the Conference side. Wealdstone are a step 3 team, 2 higher than Brid, 2 lower than Cambridge, and in the pyramid, currently have 95 non-league teams above them – thats like Barnet or someone reaching the FA Cup semi’s.

Wealdstone completed the non-league double back in 1985,  and have suffered all sorts of mis-fortune from then till now, but a dedicated bunch of players and supporters have given them a settled home and a vastly improving team. Famous players include Stuart Pearce and Vinnie Jones.

Next round see them against either York, Luton or Newport County – some pretty high flying non-league clubs there – in a home and away encounter, then for the winners of the two games, WEMBLEY.

Bridlington Town 1 Liversedge 0

At last, a few weeks off and footy was back on the non-league agenda. Only 6 points were separating the top 6, so todays game was going to be very important to our title aspirations.

The weather was cold, but we had a wonderful setting sun and almost daylight for the whole game.

The match was a difficult one, Liversedge were playing well, we had some changes to the team to include new signings like Chris Jenkinson. Our dynamic had changed with Palms filling in in midfield to replace Ash who was still out injured.

Hoggy and Greening struggled up front, Hoggy just couldn’t get into it, and Greening missed a few chances – the lad must be having a major crisis of confidence.

Our stand in keeper, Ben Escritt (sp?), made some excellent saves to keep them out, especially in the first half.

Second half and we change things around, Benno, Hoggy and Greening were replaced with Danby, Rice and Suddaby coming on. Palmer and Logan went up front and had a more direct approach, and some shots from outside the box.

Palms had a goal disallowed for a push, which only the officials could see – they made it up i think lol

We scored from a Danby corner that looped up and came goalbound thanks to the wind, and Billy Logan was on hand to nod it in on 85 mins – thank god.

To make the smiles bigger, news was coming in that Retford were losing at Brighouse and Scarborough were losing at Winterton. Other results seemed to go our way which meant we were now top of the table, but there is only 10 points separating the top 9, though we have played the fewest games, we will however have to play 14 games in the next 8/9weeks – not including the 2 cup games we will play !! Lets hope we can keep it up throughout.

NCEL Prem		P	Pts	+/-
1	Bridlington	25	56	37
2	Retford	27	56	24
3	Staveley MW	26	53	19
4	Winterton	29	53	17
5	Scarborough	27	49	31
6	Tadcaster	26	49	17
7	Parkgate	25	48	22
8	Brighouse	26	48	22
9	Thackley	28	46	8