Recap
A freak own goal, inspired goalkeeping and missed chances conspired to send Bishops out of the FA Vase at the third round stage as Division Two Blyth Town shocked the two blues on penalties.
The game wasn’t even a minute old as most of the crowd were caught by surprise when Danni Lay overhit a pass back to Catterick and the keeper watched as the ball trickled inside the far post.
To the Bishops’ credit, they went on to dominate the majority of the first half, aided by a strong breeze behind them. Johnson was just a yard short of latching onto a Mohammad through ball and Hunter blocked the ball at the strikers’ feet. Howard crashed a thunderous shot against the face of the bar and Johnson drove a shot at Hunters’ legs as the pressure was ramped up on the Blyth defence just before the break.
Blyth did cause a moment of alarm when some good forward play saw a curled effort just deflected around the post by Catterick, but it was Bishops who were making most of the running.
The home side started the second period with a point to prove playing some lovely fast attacking football which threatened to swamp the plucky visitors and on 52 minutes Johnson pounced to steer home the ball after a Howard shot was deflected into his path 10 yards from goal.
The momentum was firmly behind Bishops’ and a succession of good moves almost produced a winner. Hunter pulled off several saves from Henderson’s efforts and denied Johnson with a good block. The best chances were saved for the dying minutes when another surging Howard run resulted in another save by Hunter and the ball looked like it had fallen perfectly for Johnson to score but an error of judgement saw the striker slice the ball horribly. May had the last chance as a loose ball found the midfielder who just failed to keep his half-volley low enough to trouble Hunter’s goal.
Blyth will have been delighted to see out the game and went on to dominate the penalty shoot-out from the start as Mohammad had his effort saved before Watt and Catterick also failed to register.
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