Durham City vs Newcastle Benfield

Saturday 5th January 2008

This was the first game in 2008 and also the first of two games in a row against opposition who were in the top three in the league.

Benfield included two players Lee Hamilton who started wearing the number 9 shirt and also Scott Marshall who was named on the substitutes bench transferred in from Bedlington Terriers with Tony Shandran, Anth Lowrie and Gareth Mcallindon moving to the Terriers. Durham started off at a tremendous pace and could have taken the lead as early as the 2nd minute when a fiercely stuck shot from Adam Johnston was pushed around the post by Andrew Grainger. Benfield’s only response was a header in the 5th minute from Mark Sheeran which went past the post from a difficult angle.

Durham continued to press forward playing nice possession football with both the wingers causing problems down both flanks, just when it looked like Benfield had weathered the early Durham pressure a great right wing cross from John Toft allowed ADAM JOHNSTON the opportunity to score the first goal when he converted at the far post. A minute later Durham broke away and had a two v one situation with the same two forwards but this time the pass from Toft was over hit and went for a goalkick. As the game was moving on Benfield were gradually finding their feet on the new Durham all weather pitch but they suffered a blow in the 28th minute when Jonny Brown strained a calf muscle and was replaced by Alu Bangura.

Benfield then scored two goals in 3 minutes, the first was after the first time Benfield had kept the ball for a long period of time and in the 39th minute after 8/9 passes the ball came square to STEPHEN BUZZEO who hit a low drive into the bottom left hand corner of the net for the equalizer. Three minutes later a corner on the Durham right taken by Mark Atkinson was dropped by John Mohan in the Durham goal and was scrambled over the line by MARK SHEERAN.

As well as getting two goals in 3 minutes Kev Leighton and Adam Scope picked up a yellow card each. The first half of a battling performance ended in the 48th minute when Alu Bangura had a well stuck freekick pushed over the crossbar by the Durham goalkeeper. Although the second half started even, Durham were desperate to score and they did so in the 54th minute when another great cross from John Toft was met by the head of STEVEN RICHARDSON who gave Andrew Grainger no chance. In the 58th minute debutant Lee Hamilton was very unlucky not to score his first goal for th club when he headed strongly against the crossbar after a fine cross from Adam Scope but they were not to be denied a third goal when again Scope was involved and after a run in which he beat three defenders the ball fell to MARK ATKINSON who powered a shot across goal into the farpost to put Benfield up 3-2.

Durham then made a double substitution taking off English and John Toft causing a surprise and delight amongst the Benfield Supporters who many thought was Man of the Match for Durham. BRIAN DODSWORTH an earlier sub finished the match off when he combined with substitute Scott Marshal to punish Durham further when Richard Smith failed to cut out the pass to Dodsworth who confidently placed it passed the Durham keeper to the delight of all his team mates who rushed to congratulate him in making it 4-2 to Benfield.

This was a great battling win and deserved over the ninty minutes but could have been different in the first 20 minutes if we had not battled and allowed our heads to go down.