Match Preview : Mariners sail into Broadhurst

We search for our first-ever victory against South Shields on Tuesday night as we face off against them under the lights at Broadhurst Park. 

The Mariners are unbeaten this season and sit fourth in the table, giving Neil Reynolds’ men the perfect opportunity to make a statement of intent to the entire league. 

Once again title favourites, Shields upped the ante further by putting their considerable resources into transitioning to a full-time model last season, giving them a significant edge over many teams at this level, but our previous encounters with them have usually been closely contested affairs.

Notably, the Tyneside outfit are managed by none other than Kevin Phillips, formerly a Premier League top scorer when he notched 30 goals in a campaign for Sunderland. Fortunately, the former England striker hasn’t played competitively since 2014, so our backline should be spared the brunt of his powers. 

His squad come into this game in fine fettle, having put five past their opponents in two of their last three games. Over the weekend, they beat fellow North East outfit Marske United 5-2, with Dylan Mottley-Henry bagging a first-half hat-trick. 

Midfielder Michael Woods leads the South Shields scoring charts this season with seven goals. The 32-year-old is adapting well to his first season at this level, having ranged around higher divisions up to League One throughout his career. At age 16, he became the third-youngest player to ever play for Chelsea in an FA Cup fixture against Macclesfield. 
South Shields are spreading the goals around well. Mottley-Henry has four, as does Lewis Allessandra, a veteran of League Two who was a regular at Carlisle United last season. 

Indeed, South Shields have an impressive string of names who have consistently played football higher up the league system. Most of their arrivals this summer were poached from National league or League Two clubs, including centre-back Gary Liddle. 

Liddle has played over 700 games at a professional level and has quickly established himself as club captain. His presence has clearly been felt – South Shields have the most impermeable defence in the league so far, with only five goals conceded. 
We’re in our own purple patch at the moment, having won three and drawn one of our last four league games.

The draw came in the form of a 1-1 home tie against Marine on Saturday. Though we dominated possession, we struggled to carve out many clear chances, with Marine doing a good job using the referees desire to let pretty much anything go, committing most of the given fouls and getting away with lots of others, Rodwell-Grant three times getting away from his defender only to find his shirt being dragged off him or his arm held back so he was in effect towing his defender along for up to 10 seconds at one point.

Regan Linney bagged his ninth of the season to open the scoring after 24 minutes, but a reply 11 minutes later from Kielen Adams got Marine back into the game.
In stoppage time, Curtis Jones received a red card for bringing down an opponent with a goal-scoring opportunity, despite not being the closest defender to Solomon who went down on the edge of the box. That unleashing of frustration summed up the afternoon. 

Still, there were many positives to take from the match: excellent saves from Wyll Stanway, another Man of the Match performance from Jan Palinkas, and Linney keeping his red-hot vein of form pumping.
Ahead of the looming South Shields tie, Neil Reynolds said:
“We massively respect South Shields but we’re not going to fear them. We’re going to give it our best go and hopefully get on top of them. When you’ve got a Regan Linney or a Callum Gribbin in your camp, anything can happen. We’re going to take our game plan to South Shields.”
Reno added that South Shields’ full-time set-up could put them under more pressure and produced a line that encapsulates the beauty of football’s competitiveness: “Nobody has got a divine right to win football games.”

Kick off is 7:45pm - get yourself to that football ground 

By Luke Power