Blyth Spartans work hard to earn place in the heat

Posted by The Journal on Nov 23, 09 09:13 AM in Sport

Blyth Spartans 2, Stafford Rangers 0

When the going gets tough, Blyth Spartans don't always get going. They did on Saturday however, and as a result are in today's draw for the FA Trophy first round proper.

The Croft Park club place their emphasis on attractive, passing football but when circumstances prevent it, a young side has too often for manager Mick Tait's liking failed to replace guile with graft.

Against Stafford Rangers though, things were pleasingly different. Though they took a while to come to the boil, Blyth worked before they played, earning the right to then flourish.

So it was that not until the 40th minute did they truly threaten the visitors' goal. Then, how John Alexander's effort - which struck the foot of a post before bouncing back across goal and out for a goalkick - stayed out beggared belief.

No matter, for after half-time Blyth's superiority truly showed. On 70 minutes Alexander and Ian Graham combined to set Paul Brayson up for the Spartans' opener. Ten minutes later Levi Reid was sent off for a second bookable offence and five minutes after that, Michael Tait sent Brayson clear and he shot past Stafford keeper Lee Evans.

Even after that, deep into added time, Gareth Williams' deep free-kick struck the crossbar, but Tait Snr was already a delighted manager by then.

"I'm pleased we're through, over the 90 minutes I think we deserved to win," manager Mick Tait said. "We didn't play that badly in the first half, we just didn't play with enough tempo and it was easy for the opposition to stop us playing, because we didn't move the ball quickly enough.

"We had a chat at half-time and said 'We only need to up it 10 per cent and if we do we'll win the game'. We got that in the second half. We needed to work a bit harder, when we did, we dominanted.

"We've got good players and we can play really well at times, it's the times that we're not playing well that we've got to dig in and work harder.

"I think that hasn't happened enough lately, when we've gone off the boil a bit and haven't done enough work to make sure we stay in games.

"But today I thought we worked really hard, especially after half-time. We got that 10 per cent extra out of all of the players and got a lot of chances in the end."

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