12th April 2003

Withernsea Town 1 v 5 Westella & Willerby

After their bruising mid week cuptie, Westella were once again under strength for their visit to Withernsea, but still managed to pull off a tremendous victory, against difficult opponents.

On an extremely small pitch, and with the breeze behind them Withernsea made their intentions clear by getting the ball forward at the earliest opportunity to force corners and throw ins, but Wesella managed to hold firm in the early stages. Fortunately from their first foray forward Westella managed to take the lead. A 4^th minute a Danny Masson corner being bundled into the net from close range by Barry Waller. The game continued with Withernsea pressing, with Tommy Reynolds and Steve Beedham creating a number of problems, but Herschell-Smith in the Westella goal, along with central defenders Lee Mankel, Jamie Ham and Mike Gibson, ably supported by Steve Platten held firm. Eventually the pressure told and after 39mins a corner, which was only half cleared was fired back into the danger area where the excellent Reynolds applied the finishing touch. 1-1 at half time Westella needed to change from their usual style of game to a more direct style in the second half, and it worked.

In the 50^th minute a long ball from Mike Gibson was fastened onto by Darren McGrath who raced to the bye-line before firing in a low cross, which was turned into his own net by the unfortunate Kev Carr. Westella now turned the screw and should have gone further ahead when McGrath once again broke clear to set up Danny Rhodes who fired wide from close range. With Westella now on top they killed the game off with 3 goals in a 5minute spell. With the Withernsea defence playing high up the pitch, McGrath picked out a midfield run from Danny Masson after 58mins, Masson finishing with a sublime lob over Pete Sugden. A minute later the hard working Waller made it 4-1, latching on to a weak back pass to poke the ball home, and after 63mins Waller played in McGrath who scored an identical goal to Masson with a tremendous lob over the keeper. To their credit Withernsea kept on battling with Reynolds a constant threat alongside, Gary Wilkinson, but with Steve Platten on top of his game along with youngster Ryan Todd they never really threatened. The state of the game allowed Dave Anderson to bring on Chris Todd, the 44^th player to be used in Westella’s first team this season !!!!!