Cleethorpes Town 2-0 Carlton Town

Cleethorpes Town 2-0 Carlton Town

Northern Premier League (Division One East)

Wednesday 27th March 2024

Nearly two years ago, I watched Bradford City’s U18s hammer Doncaster Rovers at Valley Parade.

It was one of the most complete performances I’ve ever seen by a team at youth level. The Bantams battered everyone that season, were quality more often than not, and it was a pleasure to be there in person to witness them at their most ruthless - even to this day, it lives in the memory as ranks as one of my favourite games I’ve watched and written about afterwards.

In goal for Bradford that night was Heath Richardson and in my blog afterwards I put ‘I'd love to write something about him… but the ball was barely near him.’

Fast-forward 22 months and I’ve finally got some words to write about Heath because, playing in goal for Cleethorpes Town in this game, the ball was near him. Quite a bit in the second half infact, yet he put in an OUTSTANDING goalkeeping display where he pulled off three top class saves, kept a deserved clean-sheet to almost single-handedly make sure Cleethorpes got the three points, and was so good he even had Carlton Town’s fan club purring on Twitter about him afterwards.

He was solid, clean-kicking, excellent instincts and reactions to make his saves. He read situations perfectly. You name it, he produced it and it was a quality performance where he showed his class and properly underlined his value as a top young goalkeeper.

In fairness, it was a decent game overall.

Unlike most teams at this level, Carlton tried to play and knock the ball about. You could see their qualities in open play and the fact they're a decent team. Nathan Watson (No.10) was their best player - quick and sharp footwork on various occasions and lots of elements of trickery about him that caused problems. They looked threatening down the right at times, worked off a long-throw from Lewis Burrow too which is such a useful assett I'll always respect it (my philosophy being, if you don't have a player that can throw it long, how can you prepare to defend against it as opponents?), but Carlton were beaten because - along with Heath's heroics - Cleethorpes collectively put in a gutsy display on one of those nights where things just clicked and everyone in a black and blue shirt deserves credit for what they produced.

Max Adamson demonstrated some neat footwork on the left-hand side, looked sharp on the turn in some instances and ran himself into the ground before being applauded off after 70 minutes. Ben Middleton ‘aka colossus’ was at his finest and excellent defensively - making two really good interceptions which stood out. Louis Boyd worked his socks off, Dan Gallimore was steady, Sam Kay came on at half-time and put a shift in and Brody Robertson and Josh Walker were the scorers. 

Every Cleethorpes player will probably have left the pitch at full-time feeling pleased with how the 90 minutes went and with the knowledge they’d just done alright and given a good account of themselves.

The first half was even enough and shaded slightly more by Cleethorpes who got some shots on target - albeit after an evenly-contested first 20 minutes, it was Nathan Watson who went closest for Carlton in the first most memorable chance when he went on a run, showed good feet, cut inside and fizzed a low shot narrowly wide of the left-hand post.

Despite Ben Middleton and Max Adamson both being booked before the half-hour mark (Max for a sloppy late foul chasing his touch - certainly one for him to learn from but he was disciplined thereafter in managing himself being on a yellow card for the rest of the night) and then Ben for a first tackle where the referee actually played a really good advantage in the aftermath, it was in the 15-minute spell prior to half-time where Cleethorpes enjoyed their best spell and the pressure intensified.

Josh Venney let fly with an effort from distance when he could have slipped in Max Adamson, Brody Robertson tested the Carlton ‘keeper with another shot from the edge of the box that was on target but sadly straight at the visiting ‘keeper and Ben Middleton (I think) had an effort at the back-post from a corner as Carlton began to cling on to 0-0 somewhat.

Then, just seven minutes before the break, everything came to fruition as Curtis Bateson beat his man and squared a perfect ball into the box for Brody Robertson to stick in the back of the net. 1-0 finally... and deserved just about, given the pressure that had been building.

Straight after the interval, Cleethorpes had a shot blocked from inside the visitors’ area as they initially came out strongly in search of a second, but from the hour mark onwards, the game became the Heath Richardson show as Bradford’s on-loan ‘keeper single-handedly kept out Carlton to keep one of the most well-earned clean-sheets that I’ve seen anywhere this season.

His first save oozed quality as Carlton’s striker got his nugget on a cross into the six-yard box and connected with a powerful header that seemed to be going in the opposite direction to the way Heath’s body was carrying him until, somehow, he instinctively reacted and clawed the ball away.

Spectacular! And just a remarkable piece of goalkeeping because he had no right to save a header that good, from that close-range. It should have been 1-1.

And if that wasn’t enough, only a few minutes later, another Carlton player was denied in spectacular style again after he managed to get into space on the inside-left, let fly with a curler from 20 yards and the ball again seemed destined for the net (top corner) until Heath flew at full-stretch and brilliantly tipped the ball away.

Once more, top quality goalkeeping and another OUTSTANDING save which had everyone applauding at what they’d just witnessed!

Despite Cleethorpes then settling for a few minutes, soon enough, Heath soon completed an heroic hat-trick as Carlton’s striker got past the defence via a bit of good fortune and into a one-on-one with Heath where he was denied.

At this stage I was absolutely willing Cleethorpes to hold out just so Heath would keep his clean-sheet because he deserved one so much - and it’s no surprise afterwards that he got the ‘Man Of The Match’ award. It wasn’t just his saves that was good because under pressure and back-peddling during more Carlton pressure in the second half, he managed to tip the ball away when the situation looked dangerous. And on top of that, his commanding of his box, his distribution and everything else was of the same high standards that he’s shown continuously throughout his loan spell at the club.

By the dying stages, it seemed no matter what Carlton tried, they were never going to find a goal - and in the first minute of injury-time their frustrating night was compounded when Cleethorpes won a corner which culminated in Josh Walker heading home to make it 2-0 - and finally put the game to bed in the process.

Overall, a good night out. A good game with high work-rate on show and a good advert for this level with Heath snatching the headlines with his heroics.