Report by Julian Tyley
Whitley Bay manager Jay Bates was very pleased with his team’s performance which resulted in a 2-1 win at Northallerton Town on Saturday but he felt the margin of victory could have been greater.
“A fair result. It was a professional performance by the lads. It should have been a lot more than two but it is what it is. When you come to Northallerton it’s not an easy game. They’ve come off the back of a 4-1 win and they’ve beaten a couple of good teams in the last few weeks. They’re not a bad team and they’re on a good run. The pitch is probably a leveller but we still tried to play our football and get it down and play as much as we can and you’ve seen out there what we created. It could have been at least 3-0 at half time, I’m not exaggerating, but the second half was a little bit scrappier but again once the game opened up and got stretched out we could have got a couple more, but we’ll take the three points and go again next week.”
With Mackenzie Sharpe suspended, Jake Forster, not for the first time this season, moved up front to played as the centre forward. “I like players who can play in a number of positions and Jakey Forster is one of them. He’s a handful up front. They don’t want to play against him. He works them tirelessly. He does a lot like what Macca (Mackenzie) does off the ball as well as on the ball, and the same with Josh (Stewart), he can play a number of positions. We play him centre half, right back and in the midfield and I thought he was outstanding again in the middle of the park and got a well-deserved goal today.”
Forster was taken off in the closing stages after picking up slight injury. “We wanted to rest Jakey as much as we can because there’s the possibility next week he’ll be the nine again.”
Alfa Djalo has impressed fans since his arrival at the club and his performances have pleased the management team. “Alfa’s work rate was outstanding and he doesn’t give defenders a minute’s rest. He’s tireless, he’s strong, he could have got a goal out there today as well. He’s done everything bar score.”
Reflecting on the return from injury of Regan Paterson and Luke Parkinson, Jay added “Every game’s a hard game, you can’t carry players and it’s good for us that we’ve got a couple of players coming back like Regan and Parky who both got a few minutes there. It’s good to get other people off the bench, Matty Briggs gives that little bit of quality and you could see it with his goal, a great finish.”
Considering the travelling involved, the Bay support was outstanding, and in addition to those making the trip down to North Yorkshire by car, minibus and train, a group of loyal fans made the long journey up from Sandy in Bedfordshire to get behind the team. Jay was full of praise for the backing the team received. “The support was much appreciated and hopefully we made them proud by getting the three points.”
