Tividale Football Club

Season Review Part Two

25th August 2015 to 26th December 2015

After leading 2-0 at half time Tividale were pegged back to 2-2 within 9 minutes of the restart. It stayed that way until 70 minutes when Chris Sterling came off the bench and put Tividale ahead once again with his first competitive goal of the season. Rugby drew level once again with 9 minutes to go before Sterling scored his second and the winner straight from the kick off.

We now looked forward to the FA Cup Preliminary Round tie against Hanley Town. Which we won 1-0, with Chris Sterling doing what he did all season – scoring. But in a incident similar to the Halesowen friendly we lost both Jacob Barnes and Tom Turner on 65 minutes as they both bravely went for an aerial ball and clashed heads, injuries that would put them out for a while. We immediately brought in Coleshill’s Chris Jay as cover for Tom.

September came and Tividale then lost 3 league games on the bounce. We were poor in the defeat at Market Drayton (0-3) and at home to 10 man Gresley (0-2) but put up a tremendous fight losing 1-0 to eventual league champions Stafford Rangers.

Then came the FA Cup First Qualifying Round against our big neighbours Stourbridge. This game also marked the return of Jacob in defence and once again we put up a great performance before going out of the competition 1-0. The Stourbridge goal scored by ex Tividale defender and Stourbridge skipper Stuart Pierpoint. We then travelled to Lincoln United and lost 4-0 (and we were lucky to get nil) in what alongside that 3-0 defeat at Market Drayton was possibly our worse performance of the season. Next up we was against Belper Town and just as we feared the worse after our last performance, we stormed to a 4-2 win with Demetri Brown hitting a contender for goal of the season.

Even after that Belper win we were still rock bottom as we moved into October and the cup season. By now Chris Jay, Ashleigh Grainger, Jahmel Taylor, Aaron O’Neill, Jesse Race and Craig Millington had all moved onto pastures new but Tom was now back between the sticks and we had also signed Alex Fletcher, Malachai Farquharson and Mark Danks plus Jordan Cullinane Libard, Tom Turton and Sam Adkins on loan.

We had already lost on penalties to Stafford in the league cup after the game finished 2-2, before we were well beaten 3-1 in the FA Trophy against them also. Then came our biggest game of the season a home tie against West Bromwich Albion in the Birmingham Senior Cup. It was a very talented Under 21 side that West Brom fielded and we were not disgraced going down 2-1.

We then embarked on an amazing run of five draws on the trot against Basford (in which Lewis Wright did hit the goal of the season, beating the great Saul Deeney from at least 35 yards), Stocksbridge, Loughborough, Chasetown and Daventry. In all of these games Chris Sterling was finding the net on a regular basis. While our defence led by Tom and Jacob were equally as brilliant. We did have opportunities to win some of these games but did not take them and maybe just maybe turning two or three of these draws into wins, especially the one against Loughborough may just have been the springboard our season needed. But it was not to be.

We then moved into November and lost at home to Leek before coming back from 3-1 down at half time to get a point at Sheffield in a thrilling 3-3 draw. We were hoping after that great fight back we could have gained some momentum and kicked on. But the weather turned for the worse right after this game and we went through a spell of games called off due to waterlogged pitches in between the postponements we were suffering defeats going through Christmas and the turn of the year, losing 2-1 at home to Coalville, 5-2 at relegation contenders Carlton. 3-1 against Lincoln, 2-1 against another relegation contender Daventry and 2-0 at Romulus. These results you could say ended our season and saw us literally tailed off in the league table.

We had now lost Ashley Jackson, Cameron Burns, Malachai Farquharson and the three loan players, but had signed Craig Stevens.

Tividale Football Club

Season Review Part Three – Tomorrow