Setanta Shield 1st Round
Stalybridge Celtic 0 Blyth Spartans 0 after extra time
Blyth won 4-3 on penalties

Spartans faced a long night in front of the live Setanta TV cameras on Thursday night. When eventually at 22.40 Spartans finally clinched their place in the Second Round of the Setanta Shield where they visit Harrogate Town in the 2nd round.

After a goalless 120 minutes’ play before Blyth set up a visit to Harrogate with penalties from Gareth Williams, debutant Philip Bell, Richard Forster and Andrew Thompson. Goalkeeper Adam Bartlett was the only Spartans’ player to miss. But Bartlett was to be the hero of the night with 2 penalty saves, including keeping out Celtic’s 5th kick from Adam Oakes. More pone it was Forster’s tribute to Michael Maidens taken off his shirt to display a t-shirt in memory of the youngster killed the previous week – also sensible refereeing saw no yellow card for the removal of his shirt!!

Blyth had the chance to break the deadlock on 39 minutes when Mark Haran handled but Robbie Dale’s penalty hit the post.

Then Alex Leeson delivered a good ball to Bell, playing his first game since his transfer from Newcastle Blue Star and although he left a defender in his wake, goalkeeper Paddy Gamble saved Celtic with a superb stop.

At the opposite end, Bartlett did well to keep out a header from Chris Hall before turning over the crossbar a long-range effort by Carlos Roca.

In extra time substitute Andrew Johnson almost found a way through the home defence and Foster headed narrowly over but just before the end Bartlett had to be at his best saving from Adam Oakes.

The tension was far from over, with trouble spilling over between fans not associated with Celtic but more likely those from local Premiership clubs, saw at first the decision to have the penalty shoot out at the Celtic end, but then the floodlights went out at that end, so a change of ends of the penalties in front of the Spartans massed support. But after a hard fought and tiring 120 minutes Blyth scraped home 4-3 on penalties. And a late but enjoyable trip home was had.

SPARTANS: Bartlett, Christiensen, Leeson, Snowdon, Forster, Williams, Webster, A Gildea (McCabe), Dale (Thompson), Bell, Logan (Johnson).
Subs not used:- Hedley & Boyle.