Blue Square North
Blyth Spartans 2 Redditch United 4

Spartans crashed to another home defeat against fellow strugglers Redditch. Blyth already lacking a number of regular forwards were forced into a late change before kick off when Graham Fenton pulled his hamstring in the warm up and swapped places with Kenny Boyle on the bench.

After only after only 2 minutes, however, Spartans took the lead. Chris McCabe headed home a Gareth Williams left sided corner at the far post.

A free kick from Williams from 25 yards clipped the top of the cross bar, before the visitors scored twice in 2 minutes.

After some hesitation in the home penalty area Richard Softley tapped home a Chris Murphy corner from the right on 8 minutes. Then only 2 minutes later, Carl Hegg’s rose to head home a Alex Cowley centre at the far post to put the visitors into the lead.

Just before the hour mark the home side equalised, when McCabe picked up an Alex Gildea pass and shot from 30 yards which keeper Lewis allowed to slip though his grasp and into the net.

Another 2 goals this time in the space of 3 minutes undid the good work from the home side. From a Blyth corner the visitors broke away, and when Snowdon failed to clear, Spencer rolled the ball home on 77 minutes. Then only 3 minutes later another quick counter attack saw the home defence stretched again, Spencer getting away a crisp effort which Bartlett managed to parry but out straight into the path of Chris Murphy who had the easiest of tap ins.

Spartans:- 1 Adam Bartlett, 2 Ben Christensen, 3 Andrew Leeson, 4 Peter Snowdon, 5 Richard Forster, 6 Gareth Williams (sub Richard Logan), 7 Adrian Webster, 8 Chris McCabe, 9 Robert Dale, 10 Kenny Boyle, Alex Gildea.
Subs not used: - Graham Fenton, Michael Hedley & Mark Evans