Chasetown Updates

[juanillo]

Needed the win as the Lincolnshire teams got the obvious wins today.

[Rich]

Hard fought win in a very tight game.
Chasetown timewasting from about the 10th minute and the ref did nothing to speed them up. He was terrible to be fair. the number 9 should have been sent off for 2 sinical fouls.
Not really sure what our game plan was and the players seemed to be getting irritated with it during the first half but cannot fault the effort of the team.

Lucky goal but who cares!!
Back to winning ways was all that mattered and hopefully the same next week.

Have to praise the groundstaff as after the weeks weather was expecting the pitch to be in a lot worse condition. It infact played really well

MOM for me today was Kieran Morris. Thought he won everything in the air

[DJ]

Northern Premier League Midlands – Saturday, 26th November 2022

Halesowen Town 1 Chasetown 0

Halesowen bounced back to winning ways following two away defeats and maintained their 100% home record with a narrow, battling victory over local rivals Chasetown, writes DJ.

Winning Yeltz joint-manager Craig Nicholls enthused “it’s a fantastic result for us after the disappointment of the last two weeks. We knew we’d have to dig in and fight for everything today and we were really up for the battle, particularly in the second half. Chasetown goalkeeper Curtis Pond made three man-of-the-match type saves.”

Liam Kirton put an early chance wide for Chasetown when free in the 8th minute and Simeon Cobourne earned a corner for the Yeltz a minute later.

But Halesowen found it hard to break down the resolute Chasetown defence and created few chances early on in an often feisty game. It was the visitors who had the better of early play as Kirton’s low 17th minute ball across the penalty area drifted into safety and Alex Melbourne put another ball along goal following a good move two minutes later. Home goalkeeper Dan Platt then collected Jayden Campbell’s cross and Kirton flashed another shot wide from goalkeeper Pond’s 35th minute long ball forward.

Halesowen’s first real chance came after 37 minutes when a weak back header from Jordan Evans let in Simeon Cobourne, but he fired high under pressure from Pond. Pond then grabbed Kieren Donnelly’s header from Brad Birch’s 42nd minute cross. Just before the interval, Pond made a great fingertip save after Richard Gregory was put free on goal while Kirton curled over the Yeltz bar.

At the start of the second period, Pond made a great point-blank save to turn the ball onto the bar and deny Jamie Insall after Gregory’s good work set up Cobourne to cross from the left. At the other end Platt beat the ball away from Mitch Botfield’s fierce 57th minute shot.

But the Yeltz gradually began to gain the upper hand as the game wore on and the Scholars survived a goalmouth scramble from Josh Ezewele’s 63rd minute corner. GREGORY then fired home the winner with a fierce shot from a 69th minute free-kick from 25 yards out, with the ball taking a strong deflection to deceive and beat Pond, after Danny O’Callaghan had brought down Donnelly. With Halesowen’s heads high, Pond made another good save to beat away another Gregory shot two minutes later and yet another Gregory effort forced a 72nd minute corner with chances from Kieran Morris and Nat Kelly cleared. Ezewele struck over the Chasetown bar following a good 77th minute run and the home side then dug in and defended doggedly to keep Chasetown at bay in the final minutes.

Halesowen’s next home game on Saturday 3rd December against Cambridge City has been moved forward to a 1pm kick-off due to the World Cup.

Halesowen Town: Dan Platt; Josh Ezewele, Oscar Tonge, Josh Quaynor, Kieran Morris (c), Nat Kelly, Kieran Donnelly, Brad Birch (McKauley Manning 62) , Jamie Insall, Richard Gregory (Shaquille Leachman-Whittingham 88), Simeon Cobourne. Subs Not Used: Rob Evans, Tom Turton, Taylor Homer.

Chasetown: Curtis Pond; Alex Melbourne, Jordan Evans, Kris Taylor, Ryan Wynter, Oli Hayward, Jayden Campbell (Devante Campbell 82), Mitch Botfield (Mitchel Candlin 78), Joey Butlin, Danny O’Callaghan (c), Liam Kirton. Subs Not Used: Thomas Unwin, Aaron Ashford.

Referee: Simon Kavanagh Attendance: 1,059
Booked: Birch (38), Botfield (38), Butlin (45), Platt (45), Quaynor (54)
‘Tulleys Print’ HTFC Man of the Match selected by Waggon and Horses, Cradley Heath: Oscar Tonge
Non-League Paper Man of the Match: Kieran Morris

[Kiddyeltz]

Scrappy game but got to give the boys credit for digging in after a very poor first half. Thought both full backs were excellent and Tbf so were the centre halves. Not sure the 4-3-3 works as well as 4-4-2 would but 3pts is all that matters at the moment. Uptheyeltz!!

[Noggin]

Some photos

https://adobe.ly/3gJtXpn

[RobYeltz]

A good win that, I think having lost the last two games Chasetown at home was never going to be a classic. It was clear to see that both sides knew each other so well and despite both teams missing players there was an element of us cancelling each other out. That said, we created the majority of the chances and Curtis Pond was certainly the busier of the keepers making a great save to deny Gregs in the first half and ten an unbelievable reaction save in the second half too. We're not going to roll teams over every week, and we have to find ways of finding a way to win, I think today we did that. Nat Kelly I thought looked good on his return (I believe Evo was injured) and Gregs I thought did well keeping Wynter busy at the back.
I'm glad an earlier post has mentioned the full backs too, I thought Ezewele was great again today and Tonge looks quality. You can see why he is with a pro club, technically very good, as you'd expect, but he's not looked out of place with the physical side of the game either, he took a few hits today and Chasetown I think targeted him - he stood up to them well and will probably have a few bruises to show for his efforts today, hopefully his well-deserved man of the match bottle of fizz helps ease the pain. Will be interesting to see if his loan is extended, I certainly hope it is.

[Yeltzbaby]

Enjoyed the battle. We showed the ability to dig in, fight and grind out a result, another win. Well played all keep up the great start to the season. Long way to go, 5 or 6 quality sides in this league arguably the toughest league out the 8 at our level

[juanillo]

I agree about the 5 or so sides that are decent in this league but I'm not sure about it necessarily being the strongest of the 8 at this level, as I'm not familiar enough with the Isthmian quality or even the other NPL or southern ones.

However, there are too many teams that do get regularly turned over by the top few to suggest that there is little overall strength in depth in this division.

[andy]

I must be missing something. We average over 1000 punters a week, have fantastic owners and facilities and a dream of a pitch to play on. Yet we are still playing at the lowest level we've been at in my nigh on 40 years of watching. We're not even as good as 2 years ago. We are playing poor teams virtually every week. Yes, we will have to grind out wins sometimes, as we did yesterday ( albeit against a team way down the table) but not as often as we are. As for the toughest league at this level (how do you even know?), then I'd hate to see the others. We HAVE to get out of this division. We HAVE to catch Stamford and see off Spalding. Anything else is a failure.

[drummyb]

Not interested in other leagues if im honest. Andy is spot on. There is only one goal and thats promotion. Last season was a failure at the end, but it had been coming all season.
This season has to end better. Anything less is another failure Im afraid. I think we're getting a different story this season, but the end has to be different as well.

I reiterate, I dont think at this level the differences are huge, but with the support we have we should be playing the likes of Stourbr*dge, Tamworth et al. Thats not demeaning any of our opponents, but the potential we have is miles above say Yaxley or even Sutton dare I say.