It was a game that had a little bit of everything but Dronfield Town will be delighted to have secured a hard-fought 2-1 win on the road at Worsbrough Bridge Athletic. The game belied the fact that the sides were placed 18th and 17th at the start of play and after some excellent finishing, a fine penalty save and an astonishing on-field brawl, Town came away with the full compliment of points ahead of the visit of bottom side Glasshoughton Welfare to the HE Barnes Stadium on Saturday.
Worsbrough suffered an early blow; Lewis O’Connor having to leave the field after only 2 minutes through injury to be replaced by new signing from Stocksbridge Park Steels, Declan Slater.
That aside, it was Dronfield who began brighter and their start gave early dividends. Matty Ord’s corner on the far side was headed down by Chris Savage and Callum Mawbey pounced to prod home from a couple of yards out to make it 0-1 after only 8 minutes.
Worsbrough grew into the game from midway in the half and after a series of long throws, Scott Batty crossed from the right hand side, Lewis Naylor pulling off a point blank save from Sam Agar’s header.
A couple of niggly incidents that were possibly portents to later events saw Mark Fereday shown a yellow card, adjudged to have fouled Ross Pritchard in the Briggers net when bearing down on goal but Kai Hancock escaped the referee’s notebook when it was deemed he had fouled Sam Bebbington moments later.
A minute before the end of the half, Alex Hutchinson had a left footed curling effort beaten away by Naylor and the game took a further dramatic turn three minutes into added time at the end of the half.
The referee ruled that Luke Francis was upended in the area immediately pointing to the spot. Worsbrough leading scorer Sam Agar stepped up but saw his kick well saved low to Lewis Naylor’s left as Dronfield retained their 0-1 half time lead.
The opening 15 minutes of the second half passed without incident as Worsbrough added to their eventual 12 to 2 corner count.
The game exploded into life on 63 minutes when Dempsey Smith went in a little too robustly on Dronfield’s Tom Gladwin, sparking a melee on the pitch that even had the unsavoury aspect of local spectators joining in the ruckus. Unsurprisingly, Smith saw red when matters had calmed down, Ord for Dronfield collecting a yellow for his part in the incident.
Dronfield took advantage of their hosts being down to ten men on 70 minutes by doubling their lead. Danny Wood rampaged down the right flank as Town had a three on one situation. Wood took matters into his own hands and piled the ball into the top corner from 20 yards past the outstretched Pritchard to make it 0-2.
Dronfield survived a nervy last five minutes. With three minutes of normal time to go, Worsbrough’s Joe Singleton played a crossfield ball to Elliot Wilson on the left wing, who made no mistake from around 12 yards out.
Worsbrough threw caution to the wind at 1-2, putting central defender Luke Francis up front but Dronfield weathered a testing five minutes of added time to come out with a very satisfying three points.
Dronfield move up to 15th in the NCEL Division One table ahead of the visit of bottom side Glasshoughton Welfare, who have yet to secure a point, to the HE Barnes Stadium on Saturday.
Worsbrough Bridge: Pritchard, Smith, Wilson, Batty, Francis, O’Connor, Mawson, Bucknall, Agar, Hancock, Hutchinson. Subs: Holt, Goose, Slater, Singleton, Hallsworth.
Dronfield Town: Naylor, Bebbington, Stewart, Gladwin, Fairweather, Hill, Mawbey, Willis, Fereday, Savage, Ord. Subs: Wright, Pugh, Flower, Wood.
Attendance: 157
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