Bishop Auckland v Newton Aycliffe

Recap

Bishop Auckland 2-2 Newton Aycliffe – Pitching In NPL East Division

Bishops line up: Catterick, Milburn, Haase, Fielding, Walker, Bartliff, Gell, Briggs, Holdsworth, Tymon, Johnson

Despite being second best for parts of the afternoon, Bishops staged a late comeback to salvage a valuable point at home to Newton Aycliffe in front of a bumper 738 bank holiday attendance.

Bishops lined up missing their first-choice defensive pairing of Aaron Brown and Andrew May, so Fielding dropped back to partner Walker at the heart of the defence.  The early indications were that the two blues were out to avenge Saturday’s disappointing result at Carlton and after eleven minutes new signing Briggs was gifted the ball and made no mistake passing into the empty net from the edge of the box.

Local lad Dean Thexton appeared as a first-half sub for Aycliffe and his impressive holdup play appeared to give the away side some impetus, leading to a near miss when Catterick deflected a shot from Adamson a fraction the wrong side of the post.

As Bishops looked to close out the half with a slender lead Adamson burst through on goal and Catterick was adjudged to have tripped the Aycliffe man resulting in a penalty which Petitjean slammed in.

The early moments after the break looked promising for the Bishops with good work down the left by Haase seeing the full backs cross deflected and spinning onto the top of the crossbar.  Bartliff then fired over from the edge of the box.  However, on 54 minutes Aycliffe forged ahead when a back post header was nodded in by Petitjean, Ferguson the provider with a whipped-in corner kick.

After Holdsworth went close, Aycliffe countered and struck the post on the hour mark.  Bishops looked to go long much more frequently but Tymon and Johnson were well marshalled by the Aycliffe defence leading to Greaves being brought on to bolster the forward line.  The increased height up top finally paid off on 88 minutes when Johnson chipped the ball into the middle and it somehow broke for Milburn to blast home through a crowd of players.

Five minutes of injury time was flagged up and the Bishops’ final attack saw Tymon with space to run towards goal but the burly forward chose to look for a pass and the ball was cut out by a relieved Aycliffe defender.  The point was welcomed at full-time as it did look like the away side would be returning to Moor Lane with all three points for large parts of the second half.

Match report by Gavin Hadden