SIMPSONS BRACE WINS LOCAL FRIENDLY

Pre Season Friendly

RAVENSHEAD FC 0 MANSFIELD HOSIERY MILLS FC 4

Att: 14

With a fairly busy week with Shawn having a operation after falling off his scooter and breaking his leg in 2 places and smashing his ankle then him coming out of hospital on Thursday before his 15th Birthday party on Sunday, I needed a break myself away from the house for a few houses, so I looked at localish friendlies that I could get to via public transport, I was going to catch a couple of buses to Roko to watch Bilborough Town v West Bridgford AFC but after noticing it being 7.30pm kick off, it would have been a gamble of getting back in to Nottingham for the 10pm bus back to Mansfield, so I then rang Scott Carlton of Radcliffe Olympic as they hosted NSL newcomers United Grays but Scott had a meeting this evening and wasnt sure if he would be able to get back to the match or not. Just as I was about to give up Mansfield Hosiery Mills tweeted they had a friendly match away at Ravenshead FC which fell quite nice as Hazel could drop me off and then I could catch the bus home from outside the gates of Newstead Abbey, the former home of Lord Byron.

I arrived at the ground at around 7.15pm and found that ALL Ravenshead FC pre season home fixtures are NOT being played on their main floodlit pitch but on the top pitch, so could well be a new tick for groundhoppers.

Mansfield Hosiery Mills had already played a friendly which they lost away to Northern Counties outfit Ollerton Town FC 2-0 in a close match where Ollerton had scored their second goal in the final minute, whilst Ravensheads only outing saw them lose 5-0 to a smart looking Sherwood Colliery.

Amongst the crowd of 14 was quite a few faces Id not seen since the old Thoresby Colliery Welfare FC days so it was nice to catch up and have a chat with them.

The game kicked off with referee Matt Shirley in the middle who had his usual excellent game and looked quite even for a while, but the Millers looked to have more of the attacks but failing with the final ball to trouble the Ravens keeper, whilst the Ravens hardly had a attack but matched their opponents in midfield.

The Millers started to look a lot more confident going forward and after 38 minutes, GEORGE SIMPSON opened up the scoring for the visitors when he lifted the ball over the outcoming home keeper to put his side in to a 1-0 lead.

As people were looking at their stopwatches including the referee as we approached 45 minutes, GEORGE SIMPSON doubled his and his sides tally to make it 2-0 with the last kick off the half.

The Ravens came out the Second Half more on the front foot pressing forward and on 58 minutes had the Millers keeper at full stretch to push out a shot heading in to the corner of the net.

With subs being made on 61 minutes, LUKE BEASTALL stuck from a acute angle to make it 3-0 to the visitors.

The game was as much about players getting time under their belts now and Ravenshead had a couple of injuries to contend with, whilst the Millers bought on some young lads.

In the 88th minute, The Millers got a fourth goal when ANTON CLARKE headed home at the far post from a corner that came from the left hand side.

I was as I said earlier going to catch the bus back home when I was kindly offered a lift home by Dom Witton, so a big thankyou to him.

87 photos from the match can be seen on this LINK