Spartans will no doubt be looking to capitalise on Spennymoor’s poor form and secure a win at The Brewery Field for the first time in nearly 20 years.
The last win came in April 2005, as goals from Christian Graham, Kevin Shoulder and Graham Fenton secured a 3-2 win just weeks before Spennymoor United went bust. And technically, that result was wiped out at the end of the season due to United folding and eventually merged into Evenwood Town which would then be renamed as Spennymoor Town.
Since then it’s not exactly been a happy hunting ground for Blyth. We’ve since played 7 games, losing 6 and only drawing 1 while conceding 18 goals and scoring 5.
Along the way we’ve suffered a painfully humiliating 5-0 defeat under Lee Clark, an embarrassing 3-0 defeat under Terry Mitchell and been the victim of a cup upset under Tom Wade. Only Alun Armstrong has ever been able to grab so much as a point away at Spennymoor in recent years, that coming in the 2-2 draw on New Year’s Day 2019.
An atrocious record against one of our oldest rivals. Though with Spennymoor’s dismal form and everything else going on at the club, Saturday could be our best chance to get a win there in nearly 2 decades.
The Moors are now onto their third manager of the season, having had former Hartlepool and Marske manager Graeme Lee take the reigns in early January after Jamie Chandler resigned early in the season and interim manager Lewis Dickman was given the chop right before the new year.
Chairman Brad Groves has seemingly scaled back his funding of the club, with Spenny’s wage budget rumoured to be only slightly higher than Blyth’s these days. No doubt that will have a lot to do with Groves’ business collapsing.
That being said, Graeme Lee has been able to recruit a number of ex Marske players, Mika and now Matthew Dolan from Hartlepool. So despite the rumoured cuts, Groves is still willing to spend in order to drag them out the shite.
On the pitch it’s been a disaster by Spennymoor standards. They currently sit in 18th place and are only 4 points above the drop zone at the moment with 1 win in 14 games, which is a monumental drop off from their early season form.
Star man Glen Taylor has been out with an injury since the New Year which has obviously hindered them massively. It’s unknown how long he’ll be out for but it seems he’ll be missing Saturday’s game. His strike partner Will Harris started the season off in great form, but hasn’t scored a goal in over 3 months now and has since lost his place in the starting XI under Graeme Lee.
Former Spartans loanee Mika Ndjoli has joined Spenny until the end of the season and has hit the ground running, netting 2 goals in 3 games so far. He’ll be supported by Rob Ramshaw in the number 10 role who’s capable of scoring goals and creating chances for anyone in the attacking third.
Centre midfielder Callum Ross will be a tricky player to deal with. The former South Shields player is a ball winner who certainly won’t shy away from a tackle and can pick pass as well. Elsewhere in the team, Ben Pollock will be hard to deal with. The centre back has seemingly been rather consistent since moving back up the North East from Boston in the summer.
For Spartans, JJ O’Donnell and Alex Mitchell are obvious out for this one. I’d also expect Michael Liddle to miss this one as well as he’s likely still a few weeks away form full fitness. It’s unknown if JJ Hooper, Jordan Cook and Joe Oliver will be ready to return yet but with the lads having had 10 days rest, I’d like hope some of them may be back in time for the trip to Durham.
With no new faces seemingly lined up, I’d probably expect us to go into Saturday’s game with the same starting XI that faced Scunthorpe United last Tuesday. Perhaps Billy Gordon may take the place of Charlie Aitken if he’s playing for Whickham, but that’s probably the only change I can envisage.
For me personally, if Hoops is out still we really could do with another experienced winger/striker if we are to have a chance of taking 3 points from Spenny, especially if we don’t have the attacking threat of Michael Liddle in the LWB role.
FAN INFO
As in previous years, we’ll be segregated on the west side of the ground with access to the terraces via Tess Crescent.
The away end will serve alcohol, though from memory the beer is usually rather poor but the bait is okay. We’ll also be right next to the home dug outs, which usually provides some laughs.
Like most places, it’s recommended that you buy tickets online in advance which you can do so here. If you need to pay on the turnstile, you can pay via cash or card.
If you’re making your own way down in the car it sounds like getting parked at the ground is a nightmare these days. They used to open up a local car park but they seemingly don’t bother doing that anymore. You can find further information on parking and public transport here.
Blyth fans will be meeting at the Spennymoor Workmens Club from 12:30pm, which is roughly a 5 min walk from the ground. The beer is fairly cheap and they’ll be putting on some free bait for us, so even if you aren’t on the bus you’re welcome to join us there.
REF WATCH
Saturday’s referee will be Jonathan Maskrey, who is only taking charge of his 8th game of the season.
He’s previously been in charge of a few Blyth games, most recently our 3-0 win over AFC Fylde in late March last season. Prior to that he last covered our 4-0 defeat to Kettering in 2021, though he did go off after after 27 minutes with an injury and his replacement later sent off Aaron Cunningham.
Looking online I can’t see much criticism of him, bar the Hungerford Town manager whom he previously sent off after a scrap (fair enough IMO). I can’t recall him being a knob at Fylde, so he’ll be alright come Saturday.
BETTING PREVIEW
Spennymoor are favourites with the bookies at the moment despite their poor run of form. With our injuries up top it’s hard to imagine us going out and smashing 3 or 4 past them, so realistically a 1-0 or 2-1 win but we’ve only kept 7 clean sheets across all competitions this season, so a 1-0 or 2-0 win us unlikely when you see some of the goals we’ve conceded lately – though Scunthorpe was a step in the right direction.
I’m currently split on either a 2-1 win or a 1-1 draw. If we are to get 3 points from Spenny, we’ll need to find a way of getting Gardiner some support rather than leaving him isolated up top.