Morale at an all-time low
At the start of the season Newmarket looked so
promising with many gifted youngsters and team morale was very high.
Though with recent results the atmosphere has changed considerably,
having taken only two points from 12 East League Division Two North
points up for grabs.
Harry Mangell, Chris Punshon and Paul Young all
missed the trip to Deeping, which depleted the squad to a bare 11.
From the start Newmarket could see a win was not
going to be easy. There were countless opportunities for both sides
and it was Deeping who had the first real chance to go ahead in a
goalmouth scramble. Jon Hall saved the first shot and parried the
second and then Ian Devlin was on hand to stop the ball on the
goalline. Badcock and Devlin cleared and Newmarket gasped a sigh of
relief.
It turned out to be Newmarket to score first.
Following a superb run by right wing Adrian Gurnell, he drove to the
back line and then pushed the ball square to centre-forward Benny
Bennett who hit it first time inside the far post.
In the second half, Newmarket were stunned to
lose Greg Cummins for a period of ten minutes. A yellow card was
incorrectly issued to Cummins ordering him to the sin bin because of
an incident between two other individuals.
Deeping took advantage of a Devlin miss-hit which
strayed across the Newmarket D. A young Deeping forward drew the
'keeper and then reverse flicked over Hall to equalise.
Newmarket should really have made this game safe
with a number of short corners being awarded in their favour, but
the routine was having 'a bad day'.
Things will pick up for the Newmarket lads but
unfortunately it will be too late to salvage a respectable top half
position. The next three weeks' matches are against three of the top
four. Nomads visit Downham Road, Ely on Saturday (3.30pm push back),
then come games against Letchworth and Broadlands.
