Heanor at Blackwell seemed as good a game as any of those available, and it's never a hard decision to go and watch the Lions anyway. The League leaders did struggle at times during the game, but in the end they had enough to see off a strong challenge from their hosts.
Teams:
Blackwell : Smith. McShane, Davey, Blake, Davies, Spiers, Saxby, Campbell, Cox, Littlejohn, O'Donnell
Heanor: West, Foster, Austin, Stevenson, Peel, Degirolamo, Webster, Royce, Benger, Grayson, Frost
Heanor have a terrific away following, white replica shirts were once again out in their numbers - and noisy - you better believe it!!!
The home team kicked down the slope in the first period, no doubt hoping to take the fight to their visitors from the off. It was Heanor though, who opened the scoring on 11 - a Jason Foster corner from the left played back across goal by Neil Grayson to where centre-half NICO DEGIROLAMO was on hand to rifle the ball past Wayne Smith, and record his 9th league goal of the campaign. A landmark strike as well - this was the Lions' 100th league goal of the season!!!!
Grayson at the far post, setting up the goal for Nico (no.6)
The celebrations were short lived however, STEVE COX firing into an empty net to level, after Reece Littlejohn and Neil West collided - the ball falling kindly to the Blackwell striker some 12 yards from goal, and he wasn't going to miss from there.
Blackwell tried in vain to breach the Heanor rear-guard again, but Brett Peel and Degirolamo were solid at the heart of the Town defence and coped well enough with whatever Blackwell threw at them. Their only real concerns seemed to be West's kicking -- but even when the keeper fluffed a clearance, there was always someone on hand to tidy up. H-T 1-1
Grayson had a great chance to put Heanor back in front within 4 minutes of the restart, but when he was released one-on-one against Smith, the 47 year old's lob cleared the keeper, but unfortunately cleared the bar as well.
The teams seemed very well matched as proceedings continued, but things changed on 70 with the introduction of Heanor subs Jake Vernon and Graham Wells. The pair combined seconds after being introduced into the game, Vernon's long throw reaching WELLS in the area, and the winger didn't need a second invitation to ram the ball past Smith.
Admission £5
Programme £1 ( good read)
Attendance 123
