Heanor Town 0-1 Garforth Town

Report kindly supplied by the "We all stand together" blog

A Luke Mangham penalty after just 14 minutes gave Garforth all three points with Heanor only having themselves to blame, overwhelming possession but poor final ball and when the chance did come equally poor finishing. That said Garforth came to do a defensive job, deep and in numbers and their tireless efforts succeeded in thwarting the home side.
So its midweek football again and regular readers will note that The Town Ground has been described previously so tonight the blog has looked for a few different pictures including the usual tasty fayre of chip cob with mushy peas all served up by the lovely ladies in the Heanor snack bar. There was no Tony Squires in off field capacity tonight but the blog did manage as ever to catch up with Mr Squires senior for a quick chat as the crowd slowly built up in the minutes before kick off, tonight's gate managed to reach 126.
NThe game also featured among tonight's three Leicestershire based officials Akil Howson as the man in the middle. Akil is well regarded as a upcoming top referee and is already featuring well in his role as assistant referee in the football league where, including The FA Cup, he has had 18 appointments so far this season. The last time I had seen him was in an Under 17 Internaional tournament at Alfreton Town. Tonight he was ably supporter by Minesh Gupta and Ryan O'Mahony, indeed the game had the weirdest of starts in that the first time Mr Howson had to blow his whistle for a foul was in the 14th minute for the penalty that ended up securing Garforth victory.

It was 22 minutes before we saw a second foul and 32 minutes before the game had the first offside.
Tonight saw an impressive performance from referee Howson who continued to speak to players explaining his decisions, he also moved around the pitch very well and appeared prepared to let the game flow with some nice advantages.
The game started with Heanor playing some nice flowing football with the final ball letting them down and as so often happened when Garforth were awarded a penalty on 14 minutes they scored Luke Mangham driving home. The remainder of the half saw Heanor continuing to push on but constantly being let down by the final pass. The second half was going much the same way with Garforth defending deep and in numbers but also working tirelessly to thwart the home sides attacks. As the game went into its latter stages you could see Garforth grow in courage and when they did venture over the half way there was an amazing ten minute spell where Heanor keeper Deakin had to pull off 4 excellent saves, one a double save in the same move, to deny the Yorkshire side.
The equaliser never came and it was one of those games that could have seen Heanor stop on the pitch until midnight and they probably still wouldn't have scored.

Referee Howson blew for time to bring the home supports growing frustration to an end and Garforth who had come to do a well organised job had completed their task and gathered three more points.