Town triumph in mudbath (From The Westmorland Gazette)

Town triumph in mudbath

9:33am Friday 7th April 2006 in

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A GUTSY performance in atrocious conditions earned Kendal three valuable points against Warrington, writes Dennis Aris.

There was standing water on the pitch before Tuesday night's kick-off and as the rain lashed down the home side suffered an early double blow.

Captain Lee Ashcroft limped off with a groin strain after 14 minutes then normally reliable keeper James Salisbury was deceived by Tommy Taylor's 30-yard skidder over the sodden surface.

The ball slithered under Salisbury to give the visitors an unjustified 24th minute lead as Town boss Tony Hesketh brought on David Foster as a fresh strike partner for Chris Ward.

Kendal Town 3 - Warrington Town 1

Kendal continued to dominate play, producing surprisingly constructive passing sequences in the abysmal conditions.

Yet when Warrington central defender Douglas Pitt made four outstanding blocks to what looked like certain short-range certainties it began to look as if the home team's finishing was going to let them down once again.

There was also a worrying moment when Warrington's Chris Bermingham hit the bar with a speculative 25-yard attempt.

Perseverance paid off in the second half, however as Ward and Foster chased tirelessly for every ball that Kendal's solid defence hoofed forward.

The breakthrough came in the 73rd minute with Ward forcing his way into the right hand side of the Warrington box before squaring the ball to give unmarked Foster a simple conversion.

Four minutes later Russ McKenna floated a long ball from the left to the back post. Ward's header rebounded from the bar and Foster scrambled it home from the middle of a melee of players.

With the pitch becoming increasingly unplayable there were fears that Warrington could get back on terms from a break, but two minutes before the final whistle midfielder Stuart Cliff was knocked over and held down by Bermingham just as he rounded the defender and was clear on goal.

Surprisingly, Bermingham got away with only a yellow card but Cliff exacted revenge by taking the resulting penalty, sending keeper Richard Mottram the wrong way and wrapping up the win to lift Town back to second place in the league.

How they rated: Salisbury 6; Rigby 7, Taylor 8, Whittal-Williams 8, Mercer 8; G. Smith 7, Kilford 6 (Cliff 8 from 52 minutes), Osbourne 7, P. Smith 7 (MacKenna 7 from 66 minutes); Ashcroft 5 (Foster 7 from 14 minutes), Ward 8.