Corby Town 2 – 4 Wealdstone
Corby Town2 - 4
WealdstoneA couple of changes to the starting line-up as Stones returned to league action today at Corby and Stones broke away from the kick off with the first attack of the match. At some pace however Corby replied and caught the Stones back line a little flat footed as a long ball forward saw Clarke give the home side the lead on 18 seconds!
Within a minute, Stones had equalised as Graeme Montgomery scored with a free kick awarded when Gooderick was fouled outside the box, then the game settled down a little, the home side dominating with a central three in midfield stifling Stones.
Corby took the lead again on 13 minutes when a long ball wide was superbly taken on the volley from 25 yards, Byrne the goal scorer, and again Stones immediately broke forward, this time Christians header not quite good enough to equalise.
Gordon Bartlett then made a tactical change, moving Lee Chappell into sweep and pushing Carbon forward to match the midfield trio of the home team and it immediately made an impact as in the remainder of the half Wealdstone were dominant, though unable to equalise from their five chances, while Armand had only one effort to deal with.
The second half started where the first had left off, as Stones penned the home side back and on 50 minutes a Montgomery cross was knocked back by Gavin Bamford to Matt Gooderick who equalised from 6 yards.
Montgomery and Carbon caused the home side all sorts of problems and at last Gooderick and Papali had some good service up front, creating numerous chances as Stones kept the pressure on.
On 65 minutes they took the lead. Carbon fed the ball to Papali on the right, he cut inside and delivered an excellent cross-field ball into the path of Montgomery who scored his second from 20 yards without breaking his stride.
Stones scored a fourth on 88 minutes when a Lawrence corner was headed back by Kevin Swift and Chris O’Leary headed home from the edge of the six yard box. At this point Gordon Bartlett proceeded to do a lap of the pitch as a result of Leo Morris geeing up O’Leary by telling him that’s what would happen if he ever scored….
The last few minutes saw Corby push on again as they tried to rescue something from the game, and three excellent saves in even time from Armand were enough to keep them at bay and earn stones a valuable three points.
Team Details: John Armand, Jay Carbon, Lee Chappell, John Christian, Kevin Swift, Stuart Bamford, Gavin Bamford, Matt Gooderick 50 s89 Wayne Cort, Chris O’Leary 88, Dean Papali s66 Dave Lawrence, Graeme Montgomery, 1,65 Subs Not Used: Fergus Moore, Billy Sentence, Stuart Goodhall