Retford 2-2 Chesterfield (U18s)

Retford 2-2 Chesterfield (U18s)

Pre-Season Friendly

Wednesday 21st July 2021

This was a first trip to 'The Rail' in Retford - a place where watching football and trainspotting go hand in hand because the ground is situated just a few yards from the busy East Coast mainline railway.

Whilst it's a dream location for anorak's, I'm not quite sad enough to be at that stage in life where I glean excitement from jotting down train numbers; therefore my attention was firmly on what turned out to be a hard-fought 2-2 draw which could have gone either way.

No team-sheets were available, as is often the case for pre-season matches, and Chesterfield's youngsters wore unnumbered blue shirts anyway with their Retford counterparts donning bright orange reverse shirts, black shorts and orange socks.

The Spireites enjoyed much the better of the early stages against what was a young-looking Retford side albeit with a few 'older heads' featuring in unfamiliar positions, and the Blues underlined their bright start as they quickly registered a two-goal lead.

The opener was somewhat contentious as it came from a harshly awarded penalty, whilst the second strike only a few minutes later was following some neat individual work by the forward inside the box though his eventual effort did carry a fortutious deflection which took it beyond the 'keeper.

Chesterfield soon missed a chance to go 3-0 up - a lead which would surely have been insurmountable, before the non-league team started to get on top, work the ball into decent areas high up the pitch and create a few problems of their own.

One particular incident saw a Retford striker brought down in a dangerous position on the edge of the box by the last defender who was subsequently red carded - and this acted as a turning point though the resulting set-piece strike sailed woefully wide. On the half-hour mark, the visiting 'keeper was deceived by the ball's bounce after he rushed off his line to meet it ahead of an attacker and this culminated in a mini-scramble which saw a couple of blocked shots and, somehow, the visitors' 2-0 lead remained intact.

It's fair to say the Spireites were living a charmed existence up to this point but the second half saw Retford add more experience from the bench, particularly in attack where Jon Parkin lookalike Will Tomlinson was introduced, and soon enough they fought back.

Within two minutes of the re-start the deficit had been halved as Jack Johnson had diverted home an inswinging free-kick from the left-flank and on 55 minutes it was 2-2 thanks to Graeme Severn's tidy finish from inside the area under pressure.

At this point in proceedings it seemed as if there would only be one winner and whilst the hosts' experienced players definitely made them stronger than previously, to their credit Chesterfield's young guns didn't crumble and put up plenty of resistence.

The Spireites did well to keep their shape and discipline - especially at set-pieces where plenty of pressure was applied on the 'keeper in an often packed six-yard box. When their defensive shape was breached, Retford couldn't quite get the final ball right to make it 3-2 anyway and their best opportunity came when No.4 arrowed a powerful drive across the goalmouth which was agonisingly missed by the onrushing striker, despite the fact that if he'd looked up, team-mates were waiting unmarked for a simple cut-back. 

Against the odds, Chesterfield could have actually pinched the win as well. Following some decent possession play, a warning shot cleared the upright on 85 minutes and this came before they squandered a golden chance with practically the last kick of the game. Retford's 'keeper was caught in no man's land after he'd come off his line and not got the ball but the Spireites' forward, who had the goal at his mercy and only a couple of back-peddling defenders partly covering the goal, somehow put his shot wide - much to everyone's amazement.

Nevertheless, both teams will have got something out of this. Retford can draw confidence from their comeback (albeit they'll have felt they could/should have won) whilst from a Spireites perspective it was another difficult challenge well-navigated against older opponents which will further help their development.