Dronfield Town’s difficult run continued with a significant defeat at the hands of Armthorpe Welfare at a very wet HE Barnes Stadium. Dronfield were able to give home debuts to Scott Wesley and Sam Terry but were clearly still suffering the unavailability of several key players. Armthorpe were able to take full advantage, racking up five goals by half time and capping the win with a sixth in the second half. Town will attempt to climb off the foot of the table with a visit to the managerial team’s former club Clipstone next Saturday.
A largely incident free opening fifteen minutes played out before Armthorpe bagged two goals in two minutes. The Welfare’s Noel Burdett turned and fired a low, skidding shot out of the reach of Lewis Naylor from twenty yards to open their account.
The second came swiftly. Matty Hughes low cross from the left was turned home from six yards by the onrushing Adam Baskerville, who managed to steal a march on his marker.
Dronfield custodian Lewis Naylor prevented that tally being doubled with two sharp saves on twenty four and twenty five minutes. An excellent through-ball from Jack Shaw saw Naylor saving at the feet of Armthorpe’s Jack Wilson and then, a minute later, the Town stopper tipped Hughes’ half volley from the edge of the box over the bar.
The Doncaster side’s third came just before the half hour. Armthorpe exploited space on the wings once again as Max Hatton’s cross from the right was turned in from close range by Burdett for his second of the game.
Adam Baskerville joined Burdett on two goals, turning two Dronfield defenders before rifling home from ten yards out to make it 4-0 on forty three minutes.
And a forgettable half for Dronfield was capped when Hughes took a punt from twenty yards out, zipping off the sodden turf to make it 5-0 by half time.
Dronfield brought new signing Sam Terry on at half time, along with Jamie Willis and shortly after Isaac Knight to replace Ross Dawson, Regan Rooke and Scott Wesley and for twenty five minutes, their endeavour prevented the scoreline extending any further.
However, the sixth goal arrived on seventy minutes, when the prolific Adam Baskerville was fed by Burdett, firing home from twelve yards out to claim his hat-trick.
For Dronfield, Terry showed a glimpse of his potential with a long distance shot on eighty two minutes and the game came to a conclusion after a cheeky Burdett dummy allowed a Baskerville effort to strike the foot of the post and skip out of play.
Two hefty defeats in a week will be leaving Chris Millington and his team hurting but in perspective, there are still twenty eight games remaining to recover some of his injured personnel and arrest the slide down the Northern Counties East League Division One table. A trip to Clipstone, where Millington and several of his team claimed a division title, might just be the ideal place to start.
Dronfield Town: Naylor, Lester, Stewart, Wesley, Hill, Wright, Chapell, Rooke, Fereday, Dawson, Mawbey. Subs: Savage, Knight, Flower, Terry, Willis.
Armthorpe Welfare: Tyler, Shelley, Shaw, Wilson, Bucknall, Garner, Dickinson, Hatton, Baskerville, Burdett, Hughes. Subs: Betts, Ball, Bytheway, Meynell, Trueman.
Attendance: 46
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