Report by Julian Tyley
After Whitley Bay suffered a narrow 1-0 defeat at home to Step 4 side Heaton Stannington in the Emirates FA Cup on Saturday, manager Jay Bates gave his thoughts on what had been a hard fought game.
“Obviously I’m disappointed, but you look at Heaton Stannington and they’re a big physical unit and they were always favourites coming into this game.”
The only goal of the game came early on and despite their best efforts, Whitley could not get back on terms.
“After ten minutes there was a little bit of confusion between the skipper and goalkeeper and Dale Pearson does what he’s done and lobbed it over the keeper.
“After that I thought there wasn’t much between the sides for the next ten minutes but then I thought Whitley Bay were in control. You look at the shots on target, the keeper was there in the right position and it was just unfortunate for us that the goals that we’ve been scoring in the last two games weren’t coming. It’s just frustrating, another mistake on our behalf for the goal. But we’ll move on.
“It’s good to see that going from the games at Blue Star and Whickham, when we conceded in the second half, to test the lads in that heat and not concede another, the fitness levels were there. I was questioning myself as well after those two games, asking myself are we fit enough? But you could see there all 96 minutes the lads chased everything. They did put them (Heaton Stan) under a bit of pressure and they knew they were in a game.
“You could see at the end of the game they’d been worked hard. They’re a fit team and it’s good to see when we play against higher level opposition we turn up against them.
“It was pleasing to see that the crowd were getting behind us and it’s good to see the numbers, well over 700, going up. It was just a bit frustrating about the result.
“We’re playing entertaining football and getting our shots off. It looks electric when the lads with pace go on the counter attack.
“It’s great to test ourselves against higher level teams in the FA Cup; it was a good game to have and it shows where we’re at three games into the season. Our focus for the season will be on the League and the Vase. It was our first defeat but the games come thick and fast and we’ve got another game to rectify that on Tuesday.
“We’ve got quite a young team with a couple under 20. But we’ve got experience in defence and a rotation with Graham Williams, Micky Scott and Erra (Jack Errington).
“The first year I was here it was about building a team, a squad that could compete in the league and this year we’ll be pushing on with the individuals that we’ve brought into the squad. Remember that Mackenzie Sharpe has missed the first three games through suspension, Jakey Forster has missed the last two and young Luca Shilling, who’s got great energy levels for a 19 year old is missing as well, injured.
“We’re starting to get the team where we want it to be. Jack Errington had a good game and has done really well with their threat Dale Pearson who is a very good player. We’ve watched them pre-season and he destroyed a couple of defences and I thought ‘Erra’ has done everything right today. You can see when he goes into the middle of the park he creates things for us that we haven’t had for a little while.”
A few of the younger players may not not used to playing in front of nearly 800 fans but Jay commented “They were perhaps a little bit nervous but I thought they rose to the occasion and when the crowd do get behind them it’s fantastic to see, so the lads do like that.”
