Saturday 30 September
Brighouse Town 2 v Newton Aycliffe 1
Aycliffe were unlucky not to gain a point at Brighouse, where two quick goals in the second half were their undoing.
A game played in constant rain, Aycliffe would work hard in the first half. Cieran Jackson was arguably the biggest handful for Brighouse defenders to deal with. Meanwhile, Brighouse would come close with attacks of their own, Jack Normanton would fire wide several times and Mohammad Qasim would use his pace to consistently cause Aycliffe trouble.
Despite the games end to end nature, both teams seemed to struggle to make either keeper work and the first half ended with the biggest chance up to that point, Will Callighan with a pacey run and low shot that was parried away by Daniel Cameron and the resulting corner was swiftly cleared by a Marc Costello header, only for it to land the way of Normanton who blazed it far and wide.
Brighouse would start the second half stronger, Callighan went down the wing on a counter attack and passed the ball to Normanton who found himself close on goal but was judged offside. Brighouse kept applying pressure and would capitalise, Normanton crossed the ball over several Aycliffe defenders to Qasim who fired a low shot into the net to make it 1-0.
It wouldn’t take long for the home side to double their lead, this time it’d be Normanton to be in a close range position and score, receiving a cross from his own half, he walked the ball past Cameron to make it 2-0.
Brighouse began to sit back and Aycliffe’s biggest chance came via Jackson, after receiving a perfectly weighted pass from Marc Costello, Jackson fired a shot from close range, the ball almost seemed to go in, but just barely hit the post to rebound back out.
In keeping with the games end to end nature, it didn’t take long for Brighouse to retaliate. Normanton, once again, receiving a cross, running with it, and putting it on a plate for Qasim, Qasim however would fire a poor shot, sending the ball very wide from close range. Whenever Brighouse got close they seemed to pose a threat, Normanton could have got himself a brace with a looping header if not for a spectacular reflex save from Daniel Cameron.
Considering how back and forth the contest was, and how much Aycliffe grafted, it wouldn’t have been a true reflection of the game had they not scored. Liam Adamson, however, got onto a header from Jake Petitjean, to curl the ball in from close range to make it 2-1. Sadly, it was just too late for Aycliffe to mount a counter attack and Brighouse sat back and defended well for victory.
Aycliffe return to the SecuriCorp Stadium, on Friday 6th October (7:45pm). High flyers Hebburn Town are the visitors to Moore Lane. That game is then followed by a trip to Esh Winning on Tuesday 10th October for a Durham Challenge Cup fixture.
Match Report by Ryan Livingston.