Saturday 15th March 2008
Blue Square North
Blyth Spartans 1 Hucknall Town 2
Att: 440

Spartans crashed to another home defeat against fellow relegation haunted Hucknall Town at Croft Park on Saturday. The defeat leaves the Spartans looking over there shoulder going into the last month of the Blue Square North campaign.

Spartans had the ball in the net after only 7 minutes when Michael Hedley struck a beautiful volley from outside the penalty area – but the assistant belatedly flagged for off side.

The Spartans pressed the self destruct button on 25 minutes. Bobby Wilson for Hucknall played the ball out wide on the left to Eric Graves whose centre across the edge of the penalty area, should have been easily cleared by Peter Snowdon but he miss timed his clearance only to see the ball run on to Peter Knox, who took the ball into the area before slotting home past Adam Bartlett in the home goal.

Worse was to follow 8 minutes later, a free kick from the right was missed by Bartlett and Knox pounced for his second of the afternoon.

Spartans were given a life line it seemed when Hucknall’s captain Ian Robinson was sent off for a stray elbow in the face of Ben Christensen. But Spartans failed to make their numerical advantage tell.

With 8 minutes left, Christensen lifted home hopes with a well taken effort – but after this Spartans failed to make any chances.

Spartans: - 1 Adam Bartlett, 2 Ben Christensen, 3 Andrew Leeson, 4 Peter Snowdon (sub Andrew Johnson), 5 Gareth Williams, 6 Gary Brown, 7 Michael Hedley (sub Adrian Webster), 8 Chris McCabe, 9 Martin Houlahan, 10 Tony Stephenson (sub Steve Birks), 11 Alex Gildea.
Subs not used: - Graham Fenton & Kenny Boyle