Garnett’s in form team continued their resurgence in dramatic style with a hard fought win against a strong and well organised Newcastle City. In spite of further changes to the team, due to injury and absences, the Reserves generally played well after a rather sluggish start and were awarded a penalty in the first half as Harry Tulip was ‘pruned’ in the area after a fine run. The resulting penalty was dispatched neatly by Harry who continues to impress having racked up 11 goals in 11 games.

Newcastle City continued to threaten, in particular on set pieces, and levelled the game when their centre forward was allowed to turn and shoot past Kev Harty from a tight angle following a poorly defended throw in. However ever reliant the Reserves merely picked up the tempo again and were driven forward by the impressive Haggis (Iain Harris) who capped a strong, surging run with a neat finish to take the green and blacks back into the lead.

Unfortunately inspirational words from caravan head (Trigger) at half time…’the next goal is the important one’…failed to prevent the Reserves from conceding again after several opportunities to clear the ball from defence were wasted, with Newcastle City’s number 9 poking the ball in the top corner whilst off balance.

A strange refereeing performance became even stranger when Harry Tulip was sent off on 70 minutes, having initially been booked for dissent, when the referee decided that the response to his inquiry about how to spell Harry’s surname…’like the flower’ was actually evidence of further dissent (immediately over-turned by the referee after the game).

The Reserves battled on although a penalty award for Newcastle City, after Matt Alcock was harshly adjudged to have impeded a player that ran across him from the blind side, looked to turn the game on its head. Cue Kev Harty, who having not played for 10 months displayed all the class that made him an important fixture in the 1st team in the previous season by saving the penalty and then witnessing the penalty taker miss from one yard (albeit under significant pressure from manager for the day Parkinson).

The game was won in the most unlikely circumstances when red hot Steve Cowles (who was actually more stone cold drunk from the night before) came off the bench to replace the hard working Skilbeck, to slice in the poorest shot of the day (they all count Cowles). The Reserves hung on for a pleasingly victory to continue their movement up the League Table.

A big thanks to all the lads for displaying great team sprit and a special mention to Brett Hamer who came along to watch having had to miss out through injury and Matty Laws who reached his century for club with another nonsense performance (and nearly scored a 30 yard volley!).

Author: A.Parkinson

Team: Harty, Parkinson, Robinson, Laws, Armstrong, Peat (Alcock), Guest, Harris 1 MOM, Riley, Skilbeck (Cowles 1), Tulip 1

NB: The views expressed here are those of the author and do not necessarily represent the
views of the Gosforth Garnett Bohemian Football Club as a whole.