Retford United 5-0 SJR Worksop (Central Midlands Premier Division North) 22.03.23
Ryan Hindley’s Badgers are nearly, so very nearly there, following a 5-0 demolition job of local rivals, SJR Worksop, in the Central Midlands League Premier North, on Wednesday night.
The main goal for the Cannon Park side was to gain promotion, something which they narrowly missed out on last season, and to do so, seemingly, at all costs; well, with just a point left in order to achieve that goal, they’re all but there.
It would be a game that would see Jacob Priestnall score on his first start for the club, he having just celebrated his eighteenth birthday, and the returning Mark West, finally, hit that hundredth goal for the club – he’s took his time, we know…
The visitors were eventually broken down just after the half hour mark, Tom Roebuck sliding home his third of the season, on the rebound, and surprisingly, the game stayed that way until early in the second, the floodgates eventually being forced open.
Inside five minutes of the restart, it would be Priestnall who’d get the second, finishing superbly into the bottom corner of the visitors net; West, he finally got his century just five minutes later.
A header back across goal from Jonathan Froggatt was met by the goal-poacher himself, West taking great delight in slotting home his thirteenth (in eighteen games); but the Badgers weren’t done there either.
Froggatt came close to adding a fourth just before the hour mark, only to be denied by the visiting ‘keeper, then, minutes later, Charlie Baird did add the fourth (seven in seven); catching the ball on the edge of the box, Baird would fire a first-time volley, under the crossbar, and into the net, as the celebrations continued in the stands.
No time to breath for the Badgers faithful, those on the pitch added a third inside ten minutes, and a fifth overall, when, shortly after the fourth, a fifth goal was supplied, this time Mason Barlow tried his luck from the edge of the box, delighting in seeing that also bulge the back of the net, for his third of the season – and a productive one for the Badgers in front of goal.
Having scored more than eighty goals thus far, those having been pretty much spread about, some nineteen players netting (twenty if Adam Chapman takes credit for what he insists was an own-goal) – Jon Froggatt has 15 goals, Craig Mitchell and Mark West 13 apiece, Tom Brook the next best on 8, and Charlie Baird 7; meanwhile, the 0 against SJR Worksop takes the clean-sheet tally for the season up to a dozen (in all competitions).
The game now won, comfortably, Hindley took the closing stages of the contest as an opportunity to give others a run-out, bringing on Matt Morton and Jordan Turner to close out the game; Turner making his return from a hamstring injury that has seen his miss a chunk of the season.
Now, that ‘t’ word, it boils down to Dearne & District needing to win away to Staveley Miners Welfare this weekend (25 March), or the Badgers needing just two points from their three left – Staveley (1 April) and Dinnington Town (8 April), and a finale, away to Dearne (15 April); basically, it’s eyes on Dearne, for now
Retford United – Tom Crosby, Max Pemberton, Owen Fieldsend (Igor Mlynarski, 81), Stuart Ludlam, Tom Roebuck, Daniel Booth (Craig Mitchell, 78), Mason Barlow, Jacob Piestnall, Jonathan Froggatt (Matt Morton, 84), Mark West (Jordan Turner, 84), Charlie Baird (Charlie Dawes, 78).
*Article provided by Peter Mann (Senior Correspondent).
*Main image @RetfordUnited Mark West celebrates his hundredth Badgers goal.
