Stone Dominoes 1 Redgate 2: The return of men’s senior football at Wellbeing Park in Yarnfield on Saturday turned out to be quite an eventful afternoon as Stone Dominoes hosted Redgate Clayton Reserves in their season opener in the Staffordshire County League Division One.
An Ash Thompson penalty had given Kyle Adams and Dom Ryder’s men a half-time lead, but just into the second half the away side had drawn level, before a flurry of dismissals saw the sides play 8v10 for the last 20 minutes, Redgate snatching the points five minutes from the end.
“We felt we were in control in the first half, so it was disappointing to start the second period in the way that we did and concede such a poor goal,” lamented Adams.
Ryder concluded: “I don’t want to go into the dismissals too much but we shouldn’t have got ourselves in the situation to allow the referee to make those decisions and the players are aware of that. Once we were outnumbered by a couple of players though the lads showed tremendous character and very nearly held out for the point.”
Both sides began the game in nervous fashion, with neither being able to maintain possession for any real length of time.
Dominoes found the breakthrough midway through the half when Lewis Hustwit was adjudged to have handled Shane Lindop’s volley inside the area. Ash Thompson stepped up to score the penalty and the opening goal of the season for the hosts.
The remainder of the first half offered little in terms of clear cut chances with the home side having a Craig James header cleared off the line and Redgate flashing the ball across the Dominoes box on a couple of occasions.
Chris Nellis replaced Jake Hughes at half time but it was the away side who were quicker out of the blocks in the second half and they were level on 51 minutes. A corner was cleared off the line by Nellis but when the ball came back in it was Lewis Hustwit who found himself unmarked to poke the ball past Craig Bould for the equaliser.
The home side were reduced to 10 men on the hour mark as Josh Kenny picked up two bookings inside the space of two minutes for trips on Redgate players.
On 70 minutes the game changed, as Lindop was cynically hacked down midway inside his own half. With the Dominoes forward upset by the challenge, their reactions saw saw the referee produce the red card to both players. In the resulting aftermath Craig James was also dismissed, meaning the home side would play the last 20 minutes with eight men against their opponents 10.
With players tiring, Jack Steele and Lewis Adams entered the fray for Stone in an attempt to salvage what would have been a precious point. It was beginning to look like the disciplined performance of the eight men would hold out until Redgate won themselves a free kick wide on the left with five minutes left on the clock. The Dominoes defence only half cleared the danger and the ball fell to Hustwit on the edge of the box who completed his eventful afternoon by firing the ball into the bottom corner to win the game.
There will be an opportunity to bounce back quickly as Dominoes travel to Foley on Wednesday evening in a 6.30pm kick off.
[box type=”info” align=”aligncenter” ]Stone Dominoes: Bould (c), Parkes, James, Hazleton, Thorp, Kenny, Hughes (Nellis, 45), Thompson, Lindop, Cooper (Steele, 75), Broadhurst (L.Adams, 75). Subs not used: Foyle, E.Adams[/box]
