Yarm and Eaglescliffe stole a statement 2-1 win away to Park View AFC on Saturday. Josh Larkin from the spot and a goal from Jack Proctor late on sealed all three points.
Sam Robson with the match report from the Riverside.
Precious little happened in the first half apart from an early penalty for Park View, excellently saved by Callum in the Y&E goal That moment seemed to hold all the drama of the first 45 as the remainder of the half was scrappy from both sides. Neither team could take a real grasp of the game and attacking movements, let alone big chances or shots, were truly few and far between. The only real opening of the first half came for Park View as Jacob Mallinson made a defence splitting run but failed to get the final touch on a bouncing ball and ultimately couldn’t poke the ball past Callum.
The second half started with a lot more energy and ferocity from both sides, which resulted in a penalty being awarded in favour of Y&E this time, a great deep run by Sam Conway led to him being pulled down in the box and the spot kick was calmly converted by Josh Larkin giving Yarm a much needed, not quite deserved, lead. Park View seemed to take going behind very personally as from the goal onwards there was an array of attacking play from the home side. It didn’t take long for them to get back on level terms as a brilliantly weighted cross found the head of Jacob Mallinson who couldn’t miss from less than six yards.
From there on out the game was hard fought from both sides to find a winner, oftentimes with Park View looking the more dangerous on the attack, but in a similar way to the first half, a lot of attacks didn’t result in a lot of big chances or shots on target, leaving the scores level. One or two big chances fell the way of Park View, one of which being a cleanly struck overhead kick which whistled just over the Y&E crossbar.
After this the game began to boil over, with some tough challenges coming in left, right and centre. This,, culminated in goalscorer Josh Larkin taking a clattering from the Park View goalkeeper for which he got away without so much as a caution. In fact, Park View walked away from the challenge with a free kick in their favour, despite Larkin needing to hobble off and be replaced.
The game continued to be scrappy and in favour of Park View for the remaining ten minutes, but after a handball on the left wing, Titch swung the free kick in deep and the ball fell to Jack Proctor who harnessed all of his experience to calmly slot the ball past James Hughes in the Park View goal. At this point all the travelling Yarm supporters were thinking they had pulled of the heist of the season. The end of the game didn’t come without its fair share of nerves for Y&E though as a searching ball from the Park View right flew right across the face of goal and just needed a touch to rescue a point for the home side.
Nevertheless, the game finished 2-1 to Yarm which puts them within two points of top spot, albeit with Redcar Town having two games in hand. Still, we look ahead to the next game, back to Bedford Terrace to take on Prudhoe YC Seniors next Saturday.
