Steels 3-0 Belper Town
Stocksbridge Park Steels put in one of their best performances of the season to beat Belper Town 3-0.
It was Belper who started off as the better team as they looked to show why they were one of the three teams that were starting to separate from the pack at the top of the league. But Stocksbridge withstood that pressure and were able to reap the wards. Paul Iggulden won the ball in the Belper half and lofted a ball over for James Morris. The striker still had a lot to do but was able to curl the ball brilliantly into the bottom corner, giving the Steels the lead.
Both teams played positively for the rest of the first half and it turned into an end-to-end game. However, neither team was able to create too many chances, a credit to both team’s defences. However, Stocksbridge stayed strong and in the lead until the break.
The second half started as perfectly as it could for Stocksbridge. Tom Charlesworth won a 50-50 ball, got the ball down the right wing and the cross went in. Jack Dolman, who had come on during the break for an injured Kurtis Turner, was at the far post to knock it home with his first touch of the game.
After this, Belper made three changes to try and change the momentum of the game and that did work to an extend. A long ball forward did catch out the Stocksbridge defence and gave former Steel Luke Rawson a big chance to score but Ben Townsend came out quickly to make the save.
Belper were thinking they might be able to stage the comeback, but Stocksbridge stopped any thought of that. Silky footwork from Tommy Marshall saw him put defenders to the floor before he passed the ball to Oliwier Grzelak. The Pole’s shot was saved but it fell back to Marshall, who smashed it home.
The rest of the game was dominated by Belper as Stocksbridge were happy to let the Nailers have the ball, but they struggled to threaten the Steels goal. Some frustrations did start to happen as the game approached the end, notably with Alex O’Connor getting a second yellow card thus his marching orders when he kicked the ball away. Aside from that blemish, it was a brilliant day for Stocksbridge as they took down the 2nd placed team in the league.
