Hucknall Sports U9's Saturday 0  East Valley United 0

Saturday 28th January 2006 

A thrilling local derby and a well contested match ends in stalemate with Sports having to share the points. 

Sports as in recent weeks started the game strongly forcing a succession of corners largely due to the hard work of man of the match Stephen Whitley and Kieran Sheppard. However, Sports could not turn this pressure into goals even though Joe Walker was proving to be a real handful up front. East Valley counter attacked strongly making the Sports defensive partnership of Daniel Crump and Liam Kilcullen work hard for their corn. Daniel Long on the left was making his presence felt with some strong tackling and could have broke the gridlock when Walker set him through on goal only to be denied by a fine save from the East Valley keeper. With both sides playing their part in a real crowd pleasing first half the minutes flew by and the referee was blowing for half time before anyone realised. 

The second half started at the same tempo as the first had finished with both sides looking for that elusive goal. Both sides were playing some good attacking football but it was Sports who thought they had found the opening when Whitley struck from just inside the box, Richard Allen on for Long had initially unsighted the keeper but he somehow managed to pounce on the ball with all of Sports players and spectators screaming for the goal the referee judged the ball not to have crossed the line. East Valley had some good attempts on the Sports goal but an inform Dean Harris pulled off some excellent saves one of which was from a point blank range. Both sides continued to play their part in this thriller but Sports realised it wasn’t to be their day when Allen gave a cheeky back heel pass in the East Valley box which put Sheppard into the open only for him to see his shot go marginally over the bar.