Yarm & Eaglescliffe maintained their impressive run of results with an important win away at Newcastle University on Saturday.
The victory keeps us in with a chance of the league title, but that would require a win at league leaders Redcar Town on Tuesday night and for Redcar to drop points in their final two games.
Jacko made a couple of changes to the starting XI. With Cam wild unavailable Dan Jones moved back into central defence. Foz Garton came in at right back and Joe Dalton in central midfield in place of Charlie Fixter, who was a sub. Leo Cheesebrough replaced Jack Proctor who started on the bench.
The game got underway in blustery conditions with the Y&E having the wind on their backs. It was the hosts who scored first. An early break down their right hand side and a cross in to the box where it was met by Billy Murphy whose effort deflected off a Y&E player before nestling in the bottom corner of the goal. 1-0 down after 3 minutes.
From that point on we dominated possession as we looked to get into the game. There was a bit of a tactical switch as Jonesy moved up alongside Tom up front & we moved to four at the back. Our first real chance came on 15 mins, an HST corner headed just wide by Joe Dalton. We made the breakthrough on 18, a clearance upfield was flicked through by Dan Jones to Harry Williams on the left hand side of the box & he made no mistake calmly slotting past the Uni keeper to make it 1-1.
Back into the game we looked to take the lead. We had multiple chances, with efforts either just wide or well saved by the keeper. Jonesy was causing issues and nearly made it 2-1 tackling the keeper, but the ball trickled out wide of the post. He had an even better chance a few minutes later as he was clear down the left, but his lofted attempt over the keeper was just the wrong side of the post. As we moved towards half time, there was some more saves from the Uni keeper. Into first half stoppage time and we took the lead, Tom heading home his 37th league goal of the season from an HST corner.
Second half and playing into the wind, which had eased slightly over the interval. We began where we left off, in control of the game. A few half chances but we were unable to take them. At the back we were pretty comfortable, and Uni had very few opportunities to threaten our goal. We continued to press across the pitch, Harry Williams, Marshy and Dan Jones at the heart of this. We saw the game out well and never looked in trouble and were able to take home the three points.
It’s always a tough game against Newcastle Uni and as always seems to be the case at Essity Park, the wind was blowing making it tough for both teams. The goal just before half time was crucial for us as we didn’t have to chase the game second half. Another away win. Another three points. It was a potential banana skin, but we didn’t slip up and we took the win. Best of luck to Newcastle Uni for the rest of their league and cup campaign.
