By Brian Bennett | Photo: Ian Brodie
Ashington manager Nick Gray said he was ‘hurting’ after the 1-0 defeat against Blyth Spartans in the local derby on Boxing Day.
It was a game which in front of a record attendance at Woodhorn Lane – 1,488 – never scaled any heights to excite the fans and was decided by a goal in first half stoppage time by Jack Foalle.
However, a big turning point arrived only four minutes into the contest when Colliers newcomer Chris Reid was shown a red card by referee Tyler Dutton for a needless challenge near the touchline on Paul Van-Zandvliet with Gray suggesting afterwards that had the incident not occurred, the outcome of the game would have been different.
“It was a disappointing result and I’m hurting,” said a furious Gray, “As we had hoped, there was a big crowd and we spoke about us rising to the occasion but if I’m honest, the occasion was a dour contest where there wasn’t a lot of football played. They (Blyth) get a goal just before half time and then in the second half, they haven’t really hurt us and we haven’t hurt them but in hindsight if we had kept 11 players on the pitch – and if I’m being brutally honest – I don’t think that would have been the result (1-0 to Blyth) that’s for sure.”
He continued: “I thought the lads gave their all. Subs wise it was one of those where we changed the shape so we brought Liam Noble off and altered the midfield. Liam Wotherspoon hasn’t played a lot and Josh Gilchrist had an injury last time out so we put some fresh legs on for them. Then putting Ryan Wombwell and Jay Hornsby on, we hoped to get the full backs joining in as much as they could – but that didn’t happen. I cannot fault the lads’ effort but I can certainly question our quality today – even though in my opinion there wasn’t a lot of quality by either team.”
He added: “We played 90 plus minutes with ten men and it was credit to our lads that none of them went down with cramp in the second half. However, we didn’t test their goalkeeper and when you go down to ten men, you’re mindset and mentality has got to change. You have to have a lot of belief in yourself and I’m not sure that at times we had enough belief to get back into the game.”
Were Ashington worthy of a draw? Ashington’s assistant manager Liam McIvor said: “I thought we were because what did Blyth create?” whilst Gray continued: “You can say we deserved a draw however, when teams have got something to hold onto, the game changes a little bit.”
Gray was also miffed when the board went up to indicate a minimum of four minutes at the end of the second half: “I don’t know how many substitutions there were and I don’t know how many times they (Blyth) went down but four minutes of time added on?”
On Reid’s red card Gray commented “Obviously it was only four minutes into the game and was disappointing because he (Chris Reid) didn’t have to make the challenge. Chris has apologised in the dressing room but what I would say is that I thought he was being held in the box from the free-kick and it was a penalty. I asked the referee about it but he said both players were holding each other.”