The Pitmen travelled up to Tameside to see if they could extend their lead at the top of the table against 8th place Ashton United. Ashton came into the game on the back of a 4-2 defeat to Guiseley where they initially led 2-0. Steve Cunningham was looking for a big response from his team against the table topping Pitmen. Hednesford came into the game with 6 wins on the bounce in all competitions and confidence sky high.
The game started relatively even between the two sides with some excellent individual battles between Ollie Harrison and Darius Osei as well as between Joel Taylor and Alex Byrne. The latter would prove to be the key battle in the early going as Ashton attacked the Hednesford right hand side. Byrne and Docherty combining well to find space behind Taylor so they could create a great chance for Osei on 4 minutes. Pressure from the Hednesford defence resulted in him putting the ball wide at the back post. Byrne would continue causing issues on the right side providing a chance for Ashton top scorer Navarro at the back post which was deflected out for a corner. Shortly after Joel Taylor had a shot from the edge of the box just go wide.
After this point both teams were struggling to carve out a big chance until the 18th minute when a Hednesford corner resulted in big appeals for a penalty for a handball.The referee waved it away and Gavin Hurren’s protests resulted in the Hednesford manager being booked. Ashton had a penalty appeal of their own waved away on 34 minutes as the home side felt that Owen German had been pulled down at the back post.
The first big Pitmen chance came just a few minutes later when a corner fell to Montel Gibson on the penalty spot, his powerful strike was well saved by Ashton keeper Jordan Eastham. Shortly before the break Harrison saw his shot from distance of over the crossbar.
HT 0-0
Hednesford made two substitutions at half time Max Sheaf and Jermaine Hylton replacing Joss Labadie and Dan Trickett-Smith. The second half continued to be quite an even contest with both teams playing good football but struggling to break each other down. Until the 62nd minute which saw the introduction of Dom McHale for Dan Turner and Alfie White for Jamie Morgan. Within a minute of coming on McHale received he ball in his own half, turned his man, played a lovely one-two with Montel Gibson and slid a wonderful ball in behind for Akheem Rose whose initial effort was saved before putting the rebound into the back of the net giving Hednesford the lead at Hurst Cross in the 63rd minute.
In the strangest event of the game second half sub Jermaine Hylton had to come off due to an injury but with Hednesford having used all of their outfield subs, they had to bring on substitute goalkeeper Xander Parke to play up front for the for the last 10 minutes.
Ashton responded well to going behind putting applying a lot of pressure but the Hednesford defence was resilient and Ashton’s only big chance came from a freekick. Dylan Cogill’s effort forced a great save from Tony Breeden in the 87th minute.
After the 5 minutes added was up the ref blew his whistle and the Pitmen maintained their lead at the top of the NPL.
Hednesford Town; Breeden, Morgan (White ’62), Taylor, Labadie (Sheaf ’45), Harrison, Hussey, Trickett-Smith (Hylton ’45) (Parke ’80), Maye, Gibson, Rose, Turner (McHale ’62)
Ashton United; Eastham, Burke, Doherty, Cogill, White (O’Neill ’75), Hayes-Green, Byrne, Burgess, Navarro (Anaebonam ’71), Osei, German (Denton ’89)
ATTENDANCE: 352
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