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15 May 2007

Town make winning start

Coalville Town 4 Leicester Thursday 2

Leicester Summer League

Coalville Town made a winning start to the Tuesday night Leicester Summer League with a good win over East Midlands Premier Division rivals Leicester Thursday.

The summer league, which is played on a friendly basis between most of the sides in Leicestershire at St Margaret's Pastures in Leicester, saw both Town and Thursday field close to full strength sides for the opening night.

Both sides were clearly a little rusty after the two month lay-off, but it was Coalville who settled first, with Brian Robinson and Phil Sign both firing chances wide early on. 

Town where then awarded a free hit on the right. The ball was played to Sam Crowie who hit a superb ball across to the other side of the dee where Gareth Gamble latched onto the ball and fired Coalville in front.

Thursday hit back quickly, though, and levelled the scores a couple of minutes later after a forward outpaced the Coalville defence. But Coalville hit back instantly, with Robinson weaving his way through the defence and drawing the keeper to allow Ryan Mason a tap in to an open goal to make it 2-1.

Coalville then struck again with Mason again the beneficiary after good work from Liam McArthur and Sign had set him up with another easy chance. Thursday thought they had another goal back at a short corner, but the effort was disallowed because the shot was adjudged to have been with the back of the stick.

Town continued to play some enterprising hockey in the second half, and midway through Mason completed his hat-trick. The 17-year-old striker picked the ball up the edge of the dee at a penalty corner and deftly switched the ball onto his reverse stick side before blasting the ball home past the Thursday keeper.

Thursday fought hard after this, and got another goal after Town lost possession in their own half. Coalville keeper Paul Marston made a good save with his stick late on to keep former Coalville player Phil Bowerman off the scoresheet as Thursday threatened another goal.

But it was Town who went closest to extending their lead on several occasions. The closest moment was Mason when hit another fierce reverse stick shot that beat the Thursday keeper only to cannon off the post.

Coalville team: Paul Marston; James Woodard, Carl Marshall, Gareth Gamble; Gareth Turner, Phil Sign, Liam McArthur, Sam Crowie, Andy Newman; Brian Robinson, Ryan Mason; Darren Conway (sub)