Report by Julian Tyley
Whitley Bay manager Jay Bates could not hide his delight after the 2-0 victory over previously unbeaten Shildon which left Whitley as the only undefeated side the Ebac Northern League First Division.
“Ecstatic!” was his reaction. “It’s a crucial week, we were going into this tough game looking for three points before going to Guisborough on Wednesday and we got them. It’s all positive! We’ve really got some momentum going into that game. It’s nine in a row we’ve won now, so the momentum‘s definitely carrying on so yes, I’m more than happy with how it went.”
Shildon reached the play-offs for the second season in a row last year and are determined to make amends this time around so this was always going to a real test of Whitley’s credentials. Jay was full of praise for the ‘Railwaymen’. “They are a very good team. The first 20 minutes they’ve come out of the blocks to do us over. We’re sitting pretty at the top of the league and they’ve come to put a performance in. For 20 minutes I didn’t think we got near them and then we settled into our rhythm. Fortunately for us we had Mauro in goal who made a couple of great saves today that he’s had no right to save and he’s rightly so got man of the match. That takes that bit of gloss off Callum and Layton today, the two goal scorers, but he deserved that one.”
What was the message at half time that contributed to the improved second half performance? “Just being more brave. We said at half time, start going back to the basics that we were doing in the first few games of the season. I think Shildon did play really well first half and they pressed us and they worked hard. Shildon are a very good team they’ll take a lot of points off teams and will be hard to beat this season.”
Among several changes from last week’s game at Carlisle City, Jake Forster was back in the starting eleven for the first time since early August and played a vital role. “He just patrolled in front of the back four. We’ve got three of the back four missing today, Robbie Christie, Michael Scott and Graham Williams. They’ve kept a lot of clean sheets between them along with Josh Stewart at right back, but today he’s had to go to centre half with Mikel Thompson at right back and Kieren Aplin at left back so it was a bit unorthodox at the back, but man for man they were outstanding especially in the last ten minutes when they were getting everything hoyed in at them. Shildon have got good substitutions like Billy Greulich-Smith and he scores a lot of goals and you’ve got the other lad Andrei who’s scored a lot this season so yes, they’ve defended really well.
“They (the opponents) can have as much possession as they want if they’ve not doing anything with it. Shildon are good on the ball, they like passing it a lot. They get their full backs up front and pass it wide from side to side but they didn’t really trouble us that much except the saves that Mauro did have to make and what great saves they were. He has kept us in the game, but at the same time we had a number of chances as well. We didn’t play well first half but we still had four good chances. The second half was the same just before Cal scored his goal, Layton had a great shot that was going in the bottom corner and the keeper made a great save, so it’s not just our keeper that’s made good saves, theirs has done the same.”
Jay was appreciative of the 400 strong crowd on an afternoon when a torrential downpour an hour before kick off might have deterred some people. “We’re starting to get the crowd behind us now and it means a lot to the lads. It does help us a lot when the crowd are behind us and you’ve seen the difference from last season to this season, the way the players want to interact with the crowd and clap and thank them, so long may it continue.”
The testing week of game continues on Wednesday when Whitley travel to third placed Guisborough Town. “Another hard game, a few people missing but as I say in this league no game is an easy game. You look at the results, we’ve had to work for them. Every game is tough. Today’s win gives us a bit of a breathing space but we want to keep on winning, we don’t want to drop points.”
Then on Saturday Whitley are back at Hillheads to take on Knaresborough Town in the 2nd Qualifying Round of the Isuzu FA Vase. “That’s the main one, the Vase. They won’t want to come up here the way we’re playing, but again that won’t be an easy game. Knaresborough will want to come up here and do an upset, because people will be thinking that they will be the underdogs. But we know they’re not. It’ll be a tough game next Saturday but we’ve got the home crowd behind us.”
