Report by Julian Tyley
Whitley’s league season came to an end with a 3-1 defeat to West Auckland in the play-off semi final at Hillheads and while there is still the Northumberland Senior Cup Final to look forward to, Bay assistant manager Barry Rizza expressed the feeling of all the home fans in the bumper crowd of 733. “Massively disappointing, we obviously haven’t beaten them once this season, so fair play to them, but in terms of us, as an individual game we just didn’t show up. We looked like we hadn’t recovered from Tuesday night’s match (the Northumberland Senior Cup semi final). Some of the lads in there have played 50, 60 even more games this season and I think they just looked dead on their feet.
“We weren’t in it from start to end. We had two lads who started with hamstring worries, but there are no excuses, they’ve beat us on the day, they were the better team by a mile. But I cannot fault the lads for the season, I cannot be more proud of what they’ve achieved as a group this season but in terms of that one match it’s very disappointing. I can take being beaten but we need to compete.”
With ten days to prepare for the trip to St James’ Park where Senior Cup holders Heaton Stannington await, Barry explained “It’s all about recovery and then going into the match and hopefully we finish the season off on a high. But once again, even if we don’t win that game, it’s what they’ve done this season and where they’ve finished in the league that they should be proud of as a group.”
By reaching the play offs, the team have achieved the target set by the management at the start of the season and Barry was quick to point that out. “Yes, that’s what we’ve said, so look back on the game, reflect on it and then move forward as quick as we can and go into that cup final fresh and raring to go.”
“Obviously the home support here has been amazing, another great turnout today. We feel a bit like we’ve let them down slightly, but hopefully if they look at the season as an overall they’ll go away happy.”
Support and encouragement throughout the 90 minutes, especially from the younger fans, did not go unnoticed by the management team. “That’s key, we’ve got to breed the future and if you can get them involved young enough, they’ll get the hunger for it and they’re going to keep coming back.”
