Northern Premier League Premier Division
South Kesteven Sports Stadium, Grantham
Admission: £10.00
Programme: £2.00
Attendance: 319
Match Rating: 3
For today, I took advantage of a Virgin Trains East Coast ticket sale for a cheap, straightforward and quick trip to Lincolnshire, with a return ticket from London costing just £12.00.
The South Kesteven Sports Stadium is about a half hour walk westwards from Grantham train station, and whilst there are two features which can instantly turn a groundhopping off – an early nineties new-build located far away from the town centre amongst industrial units, and there is a running track around the pitch, there is more than enough compensatory factors to actually make it a good place to watch football. The ground has a rather grand main entrance, with turnstile blocks either side if ever there is a need to segregate fans – today just one turnstile was open. Straddling the half way line is the main stand, which is quite an impressive building, two tiered and offers excellent unobstructed and elevated views of the action from the top tier, and also of the surrounding countryside and Grantham’s skyline. The club bar is located to the rear. Either side of the stand are steep banks of uncovered terracing, the top of which provides ample elevation to get a good view of the action despite being distant from the pitch. Hot and cold refreshments are available from a wooden hut to one side of the terrace closest to the entrance. On the opposite side, a stand covers quite steep terrace steps, again with adequate elevation at the top although the dugouts do obstruct views slightly. Behind both goals there is hard standing around the athletics track, and three shallow steps beneath grass banks, but views are very distant. The 28 page programme was printed in colour and was not bad, with interesting reading material and the necessary stats and facts.
This promised to be an interesting match between two teams pushing hard for a play-off berth. After picking up just two points from their previous four games, Grantham won at Shaw Lane on Thursday to swap places into fifth position and the final play-off berth. They had won 17 and drawn seven of their 34 league games so far, with games in hand on the teams immediately above them, although Shaw Lane, now immediately below them, had two games in hand on Grantham, trailing by just a point. Barwell were in eighth place, following 14 wins and eleven draws, and were five points adrift of Grantham and the final play-off berth, but had played two games more than Grantham. Therefore, today’s match was a real must-win game for the visitors to maintain any realistic hope of reaching the play-offs. And they came into this game in better form, picking up 10 points from their last five games, compared with just five for Grantham. They would also be hoping they may be able to take advantage of their opponents playing their second game in less than 48 hours. When the two teams met in January in Leicestershire, the match finished 1-1.
On a grey, overcast afternoon, the opening half hour or so was fairly even but was a rather scrappy affair, not helped by a referee who erratically blew for fouls frequently. The visitors had slightly the better of things and had the first real chance, a free kick from 25 yards was heading for the top corner but the keeper just managed to tip the ball over, and from the resultant corner, the keeper made a smart save low to his right. But on 38 minutes, Grantham took the lead. The ball was passed low across the penalty area to the feet of Zayn Hakeem, on loan from Mansfield, and despite having his shirt pulled by a defender, he turned and fired low past the keeper. Not much else happened for the remainder of the half.
Grantham really upped their game after the break, playing at a high temp and doing most of the attacking, as the visitors barely threatened. On 50 minutes, Danny Meadows saw his first time shot from outside the area come back off the post, but they doubled their lead three minutes later. Hakeem ran down the left wing and cross the ball into the danger area and the keeper couldn't deal with it, with the ball falling at the feet of Meadows to tap the ball home. Grantham comfortably held on to their lead for the next half hour, before adding a third on 84 minutes. A ball over the top sent sub Sam Osborne through and although he struggled to get the ball out from under his feet as he ran towards goal, he eventually did manage to poke it beyond the keeper. Barwell pulled a goal back on 88 minutes when Matt Stenson kept running with the ball from deep before eventually bundling the ball past the keeper, but a minute into added on time, Grantham restored their three goal lead when the ball was worked around the penalty area before Meadows fired low from an angle and the ball went in via a deflection off the keeper.
So a very convincing and, in the end, deserved win for Grantham and full credit to them for that, playing their second game in 3 days, and results elsewhere meant they climbed to fourth place in the table, with a four point cushion inside the play-offs. Barwell dropped a place to ninth, and will probably need something of a miracle to reach the play-offs now, being seven points adrift with nine games to play.
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