Arnold were very unlucky to come away with nothing from this blood and guts encounter at the Eagle Valley. A combination of poor finishing and last ditch clearances foiled the home team, but the Eagles gave their high flying visitors one heck of a game.
Liam Corrigan was in the Arnold line up after his recent transfer from Retford, while his former team mate Carl Haslam played with a headband to protect a non-football injury!
Kev was Christmas shopping, so I tried my hand at taking a few pics - but it was so cold at the Valley ( again!!), that I only managed a few....
Teams
Eagles ; Kearney, Burton, Leggitt J, Smith, Corrigan, Wood, Schofield, Garner, Whitehurst, Smithson, Kemp. Subs: Mason, Leggitt S, Francis, Carruthers
Badgers : Fisher, Hall, Carty, Hayes, Nightingale, Austin, Hatfield, Brown, Chambers, Haslam, Scott. Subs: Payne, Issott, Pride, Howard
The players were friendly enough pre-kick off, but it soon became apparent there was really no love lost between these two teams. Arnold had dumped Retford out of the Vase earlier in the season, and were looking for a little bit of payback - and the relative league positions before kick off indicated this should be an away banker.
ADAM SCOTT duly put the Badgers ahead on 12 minutes, popping a 22 yard free-kick into the top corner, with keeper Martin Kearney a spectator.
This fired up the Arnold players and they quickly showed Retford that they were going to have to fight to keep the lead. Jason Fisher did well to punch away from Liam Garner, and Corey Nightingale did well to keep Joe Wood at bay.
Several chances went begging as the home team pressed forward, but when Danny Hayes tried to be clever and play the ball out of defence instead of putting it out of the ground, the ball was taken from him and whipped into the area to where Fabian Smith was waiting. Unfortunately for Arnold, the former Badger completely missed his kick, and the ball went safe, much to Hayes' relief. H-T 0-1
Arnold had another chance to level seconds after the restart, but the chance went begging. As the ball was played out of defence though, CARL HASLAM latched onto it some 30 yards from goal and ran in -on-one with Kearney before slotting just inside the post.
Haslam was then involved in a tussle with Joe Wood and the centre-back ended up colliding with the perimeter fencing. Despite the other Arnold players protests, Referee Mr. Barney recognised this as just a footballing incident and after a few raised voices and bit of pushing and shoving, order was restored. Wood was fit to return to play after treatment, but the players all seemed to forget the football for a while and resorted to hacking and kicking each other for a while!
When Arnold pulled a goal back on 65, things calmed down a bit and Retford concentrated on keeping the now rampant Eagles out. The goal came from the left - the ball across the goal picking out LIAM GARNER who fired back across Fisher and into the net. Martin Carruthers had a gilt-edged chance with 10 to go, but failed to connect with his head after he was left unmarked in the area. Mr. Barney added five minutes stoppage time, a five minutes that saw Badger's boss Brett Marshall hopping about and screaming at the Ref to blow his whistle.....F-T 1-2
As I mentioned at the start of this report, Arnold can consider themselves unlucky to have nothing to show for this performance - but if they keep playing like this, there should be no repeat of last season's relegation fight.
Admission £5
Programme £1.20
Attendance TBC
