Bay assistant manager Liam McIvor acknowledged that a draw was a fair reflection of Whitley’s FA Cup Preliminary Round tie at Whickham on Friday night.
“I don’t think there was a lot in it. We went in 1-0 down at half time I thought we maybe caused ourselves a few problems first half, but we were much better second half. After we got the goal I thought we were by far the better team so it was probably a fair result in the end. “
With regard to the stoppage time penalty when Mark Davison slipped and the ball struck both of his feet before ending up in the net he added, “It was hard lines on Sparky though. It’s something that’ll probably never happen again. It’s one of those freak things you sometimes see in football. We’ll regroup and we’ll be back on Tuesday and we’ll be looking forward to it.”
After a series of injuries during pre-season and the first few games, there was more positive news on Friday with a full substitutes’ bench. “We’re getting players back. We had 18 tonight and we’ll see how everyone is on Tuesday. We’re in the draw (for the next round) on Monday so we’ll go from there and hopefully get the win on Tuesday and see what happens after that.”