Smash And Grab Shildon End Reserves Good Run

by Jeff King (With A Huge Nod To Colin Wotherspoon)

Wearside League Division One - Wednesday 5th March 2025 Chester-le-Street United Reserves 0 v 2 Shildon Railway

United had seen Wednesday's home league clash with Shildon as a good opportunity for another win and three more points to push themselves further up the table.

In the end in a game they dominated they couldn't make the breakthroughs required to obtain their goals and were left frustrated and disappointed with a tough to take a 2 - 0 loss on the night against a well organised and tough to breakdown Shildon side.

This game was frantic from the first whistle with both teams going at each other from the word go and both teams having good opportunity’s to go ahead before Shildon broke the deadlock shortly before the break.

It came from a corner kick that once again United failed to deal with resulting in the Shildon player scoring from close range. This is something United's coaching staff and players we must address as a group as not enough players are taking responsibility to defend their box.

At the other end Shildon to be fair to them showed United's young reserve lads how it should be done as they blocked and communicated better with everything that was thrown at them.

United went into the break 1-0 down. The second half it was all United but again Shildon defended their box and goal with everything they had and midway through the second half they hit us with a sucker punch going 2 - 0 in front.

To be fair to United they kept pushing forward without any joy. Finn cook hitting the cross bar and Jude Anderson missed a great chance with a close range header.

Late in the game the young united lads started to get frustrated with how they just could not get back on level terms and tempers from both sets of players got tested at times.

But in the end Shildon took all 3 points as they showed how to really defend your own box better than United and they took their chances better than Chester, fair play to Shildon.

United now look forward to Saturday's game away v Belmont hoping that they can learn from valuable lessons from this game. All 5 subs got used and played their part late in the game to freshen things up as we used a lot of energy in the game.

TEAM : 1. Harry Telfer 2. Keane Mitchell 3. Joe Walls 4. Matty Henderson 5. Dan Walton 6. Riley Everett 7. Kymani Severin 8. Dylan Robson 9. Jude Anderson 10. Olly Dixon (c) 11. Harvey Lawrence SUBS : Jack Wilson, Leo Fasuan, Finn Cook, Ethan Bell, Evan Cubby

Colin Wotherspoon's Post Game Thoughts - Standout players would go with Kymani Severin was a real handful again especially first half for their full back.

Joe Walls once again did well as left full back and is looking like the player he was before his ACL injury. Matty Henderson and Dylan Robson gave us legs in midfield and quality at times in possession.