Blyth Spartans 1 Tamworth 1

A crowd of 577 boosted by a good vocal following from Tamworth saw Spartans snatch a point in the 92nd minute in a match that had 0-0 written all over it until the last 15 minutes.

Neither keeper had much to do with Bartlett marginally the busier in a match almost devoid of clear chances.

The visitors certainly had the better first half possession without doing much with it with Gareth Sheldon testing Spartans goalkeeper Adam Bartlett in the opening minutes with a left footed curling drive from just outside the penalty area.

Andrew Thompson for the home side tried his luck from long range with the ball just missing the target.

On 30 minutes Spartans had a major blow when striker Robert Dale was carried off with his left leg in a medical support. He had gone down clutching his left ankle, no opposing challenge had been made on him.

Chris McCabe shot wide from the edge of the penalty area after debutant Afelobi Shekoni held up the ball well on the edge of the penalty before playing finding McCabe.

Man of the match Fenton with a weighted pass in the stride of Michael Maidens, saw the Hartlepool United youngster test Jose Veiga – who got lucky with his fumble with defender Gary Taggert coming to his rescue with Shekoni looking to capitalise.

Spartans almost grabbed a fortunate lead almost on half time when McCabe leaning back put Maidens knock down from a Graham Fenton corner over the bar.

Kyle Stoner supplied the chip into the box which SHELDON took on past a hesitant defence to stab low past Bartlett on 77 minutes.

With time running out sub Michael Hedleys long throw into the away penalty area was headed out to THOMPSON who struck a superb 25 yarder high into the net past Veiga.

Spartans : 1 Adam Bartlett, 2 Gareth Williams, 3 Ben Christensen, 4 Peter Snowdon, 5 Michael Coulthard, 6 Andrew Leeson, 7 Andrew Thompson, 8 Chris McCabe, 9 Robert Dale (sub Graham Fenton), 10 Afelobi Shekoni (sub Michael Hedley), 11 Michael Maidens.
Subs not used: Richard Hodgson, Christian Graham and Kenny Boyle.