Recap
Newcastle Benfield: Grainger, Green, Guy, Robson, Varga, McNamara, Leech, Hailey, McGorrigan, Walker, Watts
There was no sign of the snow from earlier in the day in Newcastle as the teams took to the field on a freezing night.
The bishops were initially the side to settle better without creating anything to threaten veteran keeper Grainger. The home side tested Catterick with a powerful snap shot in the box on the 15-minute mark, Bishops’ keeper reacting well to beat out the effort.
Catterick’s goal then survived several long-range efforts as Benfield had the better of the first half with Bishops’ best moment coming from good work by Giles down the left but his lovely dinked cross just evaded everyone in a green shirt.
With the teams out for the second half and the temperature hovering around zero, the pitch was starting to ice over. Benfield seemed to be adapting better to the conditions and went on the offensive, Catterick again called into action this time at his near post to deflect an effort for a corner. Guy saw an effort fly just wide of Bishops’ goal on 54 minutes and it was clear the home side was in the ascendency.
A rare effort on Grainger’s goal came via a Fairley free kick as the ball glanced the top of the net and then shortly after on 67 minutes the winning goal of the game arrived out of nowhere. Matty Weirs intercepted the ball down the right channel and he showed good composure to pass the ball under Grainger from a tight angle.
Knight curled a free kick narrowly wide of the far post with Catterick a spectator but Bishops went on to manage the game quite comfortably despite the increasingly desperate appeals by Benfield’s players and management for anything and nothing. A vitally important 3 points and closes the gap to second-placed Ashington.
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