Football – Ashcroft heads injury time winner (From The Westmorland Gazette)

Football – Ashcroft heads injury time winner

10:33pm Saturday 2nd April 2005 in Sport By Dennis Aris

Kendal Town 3, Spalding United 2.

AN INJURY time header from Lee Ashcroft won the game for Kendal and kept their UniBond League First Division play-offs bid on course.

And it was no more than battling Town deserved as they came back from 2-0 down with a show of attacking football that prevented the visitors even having shot on Kendal's goal in the second half.

Yet the signs did not look good early on as Spalding took advantage of two glaring defensive errors, tall centre-half Gary Pawson being left unmarked eight yards out to head home crosses from the right for almost identical goals in the 10th and 22nd minutes.

For the remainder of the first half it looked destined not to be Town's day as they were denied looked like a clear penalty for hands, fell foul of frequent use of the whistle by Mr B. Roberts and saw several good stops by Spalding keeper Ian Pledger.

From the re-start Town's all out bombardment began and on 57 minutes Town were awarded a penalty when Ged Smith was hacked down just inside the edge of the box.

When Pledger got down quickly to smother Ashcroft's spot kick it still looked bleak for Town, but three minutes later Ian Kilford raided to the bye-line and drove the ball hard across the penalty area where Ashcroft made amends by tapping in from three yards.

Kendal rained innumerable balls into the box and won at least a dozen corners as they strove for the equaliser and inevitably it was from one of those corners that it arrived. Ged Smith's well-flighted kick was met by Dene Whittal-Williams whose 71st minute header went in off the underside of the bar.

With Town totally dominant there were near misses by David Foster and Ashcroft, but four minutes into injury time a draw looked inevitable.

Then Ged Smith delivered another peach of a corner into the goalmouth. Pledger got a hand to it, but could only push the ball towards the far post where Ashcroft was lurking to head in.

Manager Tony Hesketh said before the weekend that side probably needed another nine points to win a play-off place. With three of them now in the bag, Town head for Chorley on Tuesday night hopeful of grabbing three more.