Football – Kendal Town reach play-offs in final-day thriller (From The Westmorland Gazette)

Football – Kendal Town reach play-offs in final-day thriller

7:04pm Saturday 25th April 2009 in

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IN A hugely dramatic conclusion to their season, Kendal Town have secured a place in this season’s Unibond Premier League play-offs with a last-minute 3-2 win over Buxton.

The win secured the fourth play-off place and means Town travel to Ilkeston Town on Tuesday evening in the play-off semi-finals. If successful, they will play the winners of the Nantwich v Guiseley semi-final, on Saturday - again away.

Few at Parkside will be able to remember a more nerve-shredding 90 minutes of football. The final whistle only intensified the drama as players and fans had to endure an agonising wait for other results to come through to confirm that Kendal will be among the teams fighting it out for promotion.

When news finally did arrive that the key fixture involving FC United and Bradford Park Avenue had ended in a 1-1 draw it sparked a pitch invasion and jubilant scenes that will be remembered for years to come.

The game itself was as good an advert as any to sum up Town’s season.

It had all looked to be going well for Lee Ashcroft’s side. Several brief downpours shortly after kick-off greased the hard pitch and Kendal were quickly about their game and created several chances early on.

Ian Kilford rolled back the years to put in a hugely impressive performance in the middle of the park and all Town’s early attacking play came through the former Nottingham Forest man.

With just over quarter of an hour played Town were ahead. The opener came as the result of some brilliant passing. Dispossessing a Buxton man in the middle of the park, Callum Warburton laid the ball on for Osman on the right flank. The winger played a brilliant pass over a defender to Foster, who quickly cut into the area from the right. With two defenders closing in, Foster picked his moment and threaded a pass to Taylor, who finished from close range.

The goal gave Town confidence and they flooded forward creating chance after chance. Danny Wisdom saw his header go narrowly wide on 19 minutes while Osman, Taylor and Paul Byre all also went close.

Kendal deservedly doubled their lead on 26 minutes. After a good move down the right had looked to have broken down, Wisdom laid on a short pass and skipper Tony Hallam fired in a brilliant shot from the edge of the area that rifled into the top right-hand corner.

There were more chances for Warburton and Wisdom before the half was out but there was to be no more goals and Town looked more than worthy leaders at the half-time break.

The second half was a different story. Perhaps affected by the news that results elsewhere weren’t going their way, Town struggled to recreate their first-half form and allowed Buxton back into the game.

Shortly after the hour mark, Buxton top scorer Gavin Knight dragged his side to within a goal of Kendal. A long ball forward fell to the striker who hit a fantastic drive past Newnes into the top left-hand corner on 66 minutes.

The goal shocked Kendal out of their malaise and substitute Craig Hobson went close with a low drilled effort on 74 minutes.

But just as Town looked to be getting to grips with their task once again, Buxton equalised with a very soft goal to silence Parkside. Another long ball over the top looked to have been delt with by David Standley but the otherwise excellent centre-back somehow miscued his kick and allowed Neil Stevens to steal the ball and finish past the stranded Newnes on 80 minutes.

Kendal knew nothing other than a win would to and steamed forward cheered on by the vocal home support. The win they wanted looked to be slipping away from them though and when Taylor missed a sitter from six yards on 84 minutes and several heads went in to hands.

But throughout their season Town have displayed a never-say-die attitude that has won them points in the dying minutes and with time fast running out once again they conjured up a winner.

With just one minute of normal time remaining, a sustained period of Kendal pressure saw the ball fall to Paul Byrne on the wide left. With players stacked up in the box. Byrne sent in the perfect cross which was met by Danny Wisdom. The young winger did superbly to head the ball into the bottom right of the net and send the Town fans into raptures.

Typically of Town there was one last heart in mouth moment as a late Buxton corner looked to have beaten Newnes only for the ball to be scrambled off the line by Byrne.

But it was Kendal’s afternoon. After the news arrived that Bradford had drawn Town players were mobbed by the fans and left the pitch to a chorus of “We are going up”. And on today’s performance you just wouldn’t bet against it.