24th August 2002

Easington United 2 v 3 Westella & Willerby

Again the starting line-up had to be adjusted again with Lee Humphriess
picking up an injury whilst away with England and Scott Morrison unavailable
due to personal reasons. This saw the return of Geoff Herbert and debut was
handed out to youngster Mike Derbyshire in the heart of the midfield. Nicky
Laughton also got the nod ahead of Nathan Nuttall.
Westella started the game very poorly and failed to cope with Easingtons
4-3-3 formation. Steve Platten found himself playing at left back instead of
the centre of midfield. Easington opened the scoring after poor marking
again from a corner saw the unmarked played to head home from close range.
The visitors came out from the kick off with an impromptu adjustment to
their formation, going to 4-4-2 and finally saw themselves get a foot hole
in the game. They pressed forward and grabbed a spectacular equaliser from
their captain Steve Platten who collected a ball from an attemtped clearance
and fired in an unstoppable shot from the edge of the area. With their tails
up Westella edged in front when a long ball from Matt Herschell-Smith was
flicked on by Nicky Laughton and Jamie Robinson raced onto the ball and
lobbed the advancing keeper with his right foot to give Westella the lead.
Westella continued to dominate and Nicky Laughton missed a golden
opportunity to extend the lead. Approaching the interval the ball broke to
Platten on the edge of the area who saw the opportunity to run through the
advancing defence until he was schythed down on the edge of the area with
only the keeper to beat. The resulting free-kick led to nothing and Platten
went in at half time seemingly with superficial wounds. On closer inspection
he had a small hole in his shin and only lasted 2 minutes of the second half
after experiencing tremendous pain to his left knee. He was replaced by
Nathan Nuttall who slotted in up front and Eddie Turay moved back into his
favoured midfield role. Mark McGrath took over the captain's armband.
Easington were handed a gift of an equaliser when their forward advanced
into the penalty area and cut the ball inside, ran into Jamie Ham!, and the
referee awarded a penalty??? Obstruction maybe? Taking the forward out? I
don't think so! Neither did Eddie Turay who was booked for decent. They just
coverted the penalty after a great effort from Hersch!
Westella got the winner when Nathan Nuttall latched onto a long ball over
the top and somehow the ball ended up in the back of the net after the
defender tackled Nathan and the ball rebounded off his knee and past the
advancing keeper. Eddie Turay received his marching orders with only minutes
remaining for his second bookable offence. Westella survived the last couple
of minutes after Nicky Laughton dropped into midfield for the remainder of
the game.