By Brian Bennett
North Shields FC 1 Ashington AFC 1
Ashington manager Nick Gray said he was ‘relatively happy’ after his side drew 1-1 against Ebac Northern League first division side North Shields at the Daren Persoon Stadium in their first workout of pre-season.
Regan Paterson’s excellent opener in the 70th minute was cancelled out ten minutes later by an Ashington trialist and Gray said afterwards: “It was our first friendly of the campaign as opposed to Shields’s fourth game and it was a great work out. They (North Shields) have played together a bit longer than us whilst we had new personnel and looked at playing a different shape. We don’t want to lose games and I keep saying that pre-season results don’t really matter but I thought overall a draw was a fair result and I’m relatively happy. There wasn’t a lot in the game with handling by both ‘keepers’ excellent and what little they had to do they did it really well.”
He continued: “We gave the goal away after we lost possession in a poor area and it was a fantastic finish by the kid Paterson but to be fair we kept going and got our just rewards. We got an equaliser, but they (North Shields) could have nicked it in the end with our goalkeeper Matty Alexander making a couple of great saves which will do his confidence the world of good.”
He added: “We had players missing and we were still looking at other personnel and I thought the trialists did well. The players who were playing out of position gave their all so it was a worthwhile exercise. Pre-season is only as good as what you get out of it and I thought we got a lot out of it tonight.”
Meanwhile all of the Ashington players wore black armbands as a mark of respect for former Collier Curtis Coppen who sadly passed away recently. “It’s obviously a sad time for Curtis’s family and friends,” added Gray, “Curtis played for Ashington and was with me as a player when I was manager at Morpeth Town. He was also a cult hero here at North Shields and his passing brings things back to reality. I spoke to Shields’ manager Brian Smith about it during the week and said we wanted to do something. Shields’ have already had previous friendlies where they have held minutes silences for Curtis, so we opted to wear black armbands.”