FT RACA 0 CHESTER LE STREET TOWN 4 Attendance 297
Albion’s fine winning streak was blown out the water by Chester-le-Street Town at the Oldhaulage Stadium this afternoon. Although undeservedly trailing 0-1 at half time to a Ryan Wright goal, Ryton were decidedly second best after the interval, Wright getting a second goal before a late collapse from the hosts in which Owen Kingsland & Scott Robson got a late goal each within two minutes of each other. RACA’s biggest home defeat to the Cestrians see us drop to 6th place, Chester being one of the clubs to leapfrog us.
MATCH SUMMARY
Nathan Beckham was faced with the late news that Louis Calvert would be unavailable for this top of the table clash due to illness adding to the absence of Declan Bisset who was on holiday meaning having to put walking wounded on the bench to face in form Chester-le-Street Town. In an afternoon where the Ryton match day camera misfired due to moisture in the works from last week (hence the truncated match report), Albion’s players followed suit in the second half with a meek performance after putting in a decent first half.
In front of a healthy attendance of 291, Albion had plenty of efforts in the early period but the shooting boots were left firmly in the changing rooms as shots were high wide & handsome. So it came against the run of play when the Cestrians took the lead on 18 minutes when Ryan Wright received the ball from the left flank and shot home from close range for his first goal of the season. Albion responded with the usual classy approach play but no-one getting on the end of crosses in the Chester box. The shots kept coming but were mainly well off target with Town keeper Alexander Lawrence only having to dirty his shirt once, making a comfortable save low to his right and after a scrappy 45 minutes Ryton were in the recently unfamiliar situation of going into the interval behind.
HT RACA 0 Chester-le-Street Town 1
The second half saw Albion’s influence on the game gradually ebb away and it was the visitors who went close to extending the lead on 64 minutes when Flynn Martindale headed a Daniel Marriott free kick on to the top of Callum Corkhill’s bar. RACA pressed on for the leveller but found the red wall of the Cestrians defence hard to penetrate & were restricted to shots from distance. Instead Chester extended the lead on 72 minutes from a breakaway, Marriott and Wright combining & via a deflection from a defender, Wright was able to tap home. The visitors wrapped the game up in the 89th minute from another break when substitute Owen Kingsland had the legs to beat his marker and fire home for 3-0. Albion’s Jack Elliott and Louis Anderson made keeper Lawrence earn his corn in the closing stages forcing a fantastic double save from him, but instead Ryton conceded a fourth goal in stoppage time when the experienced Scott Robson who had also come on as a substitute, outpaced his marker & dinked the ball wide of the advancing Corkhill before firing home into an empty net to make it 4-0 and complete the rout.
A bit of a setback on the upward trajectory, hopefully just a blip but a whole week to wait to try and rectify with the trip to AFC Newbiggin on Saturday.
RACA- Corkhill, Fletcher, Skivington (Bailey 84), Lynch, Dodds, Driver, Elliott, McLeod, Anderson, Johnston (Whittaker 65), Dart. Substitutes Not Used- Adotey, Craggs, Hayton
Saturday’s Other Division 2 Results
Esh Winning 0 Billingham Town 4 (Watt 2, White, Robinson)
FC Hartlepool 5 (Stott 2, Close, Green, McGee) Grangetown Boys Club 0
Newcastle University 0 Boldon CA 0
Redcar Town 2 (Harrison, Abdullahi) Darlington Town 1 (McMahon)
Seaham Red Star 2 (Burton, Appleby) AFC Newbiggin 0
Sunderland RCA 1 (Stanton) Jarrow 3 (Bates, Barber, Cunningham)
Sunderland West End 3 (Benali 2, Robinson) Durham United 1 (Duggan)
Tow Law Town 0 Prudhoe YC Seniors 3 (Berman, Wright, Rogers)
Yarm & Eaglescliffe 2 (Wild, Conway) Park View 0