Wrens top the table in 2009

Shirebrook Town 0

Rainworth Miners 4

RAINWORTH roared back to the top of the Premier Division with a thoroughly professional demolition of neighbours Shirebrook, and recorded their 13th successive league victory in the process.
The result may have been a tonic for absentee Wrens manager Rudy Funk who missed the derby through illness, but it was very hard on the Shirebrook officials and supporters who had done a magnificent job in clearing the pitch so that the game could be played at all.
It was the only one to go ahead in the whole of the NCEL and also in the Mansfield area, and at least those who worked so hard to bring the pitch into such excellent condition were rewarded handsomely by a bumper gate of 265.
But their favourites’ lack lustre performance will surely have had at least some volunteers asking themselves whether their efforts had really been worthwhile.
Rainworth, though, will go into the New Year as league leaders, and it was a poetic twist that at this Christmas season Massiah McDonald should have come up with a man of the match show which included a superbly taken brace of goals before sitting out the final 18 minutes.
Shirebrook were without suspended goalkeeper Mark Frost and also skilful wide man Craig Wilson, who had joined the Reds a few weeks earlier from Rainworth and had been the subject of a gentlemen’s agreement that he should not play against his former club in return for the standard seven days notice being waived.
McDonald showed his early paces with an eye-catching run in only the second minute before laying off to Ian Clarke whose 23-yard shot was narrowly wide.
Chris Rhodes had a good chance to give the Reds an eighth minute lead, scooping over the bar when a free kick was played into the box.
Two minutes later Gareth Davey headed a free kick onto the roof of former Town keeper Mark Hales’ net.
There had been little to choose between the two sides in the first quarter, but it was Rainworth who finally broke the deadlock in the 23rd minute. Town defender Glen Holland intercepted Ant Lynam’s through ball but his back pass to keeper Simon Smith was weak, Danny Naylor pounced on it, and squared the ball for Brendan Sweeney to apply the finish.
Three minute later Holland almost made amends with a header just over the bar, but Rainworth were getting on top and doubled their lead in the 36th minute when McDonald surged in from the left and beat Smith with an unstoppable low angled drive from just inside the box.
It should have been 3-0 to the Wrens in the third minute of stoppage time. McDonald picked out James Whitehead with a visionary crossfield pass, and he in turn put Naylor through on goal, only for the Wrens midfielder to slide his finish wide as Smith advanced to cut the angle.
However, four minutes into the restart Rainworth did get their third. Sweeny farmed the ball wide to the left from where Lynam laid off for Matt Baxter to lash home from the edge of the box.
Clarke was again a whisker wide with a trademark 20-yarder from Sweeney’s neat lay-off.
And, although full backs Martin Rowbottom and Gareth Davey were doing well under pressure in an overworked Reds defence, it was only a matter of time before the fourth goal came.
It arrived on the hour mark when Baxter fed McDonald who speared a low drive into the corner of the net.
Thereafter the game went off the boil for a time. With the job more or less done McDonald was withdrawn along with Matt Draper and Lynam.
But Shirebrook’s introduction of Craig Cantrell just after the fourth goal gave them fresh impetus, and they might have pulled up to three goals back in the final eight minutes.
In the 82nd minute Cantrell’s 20-yarder brought the first real save out of Hales, who then parried a strong effort from former Rainworth striker Peter Stubley.
And Cantrell went close again, pouncing on Lee Wilkinson’s headed clearance of a free kick and grazing the top of the bar with another 20-yard pot shot.
But it was all too little too late for the home side who, for most of the match, could not live with another strong Rainworth show, which should put the Wrens in good heart for New Year Saturday’s visit by fellow title contenders Scarborough.

SHIREBROOK: Smith, Rowbottom, Davey, Storer, Holland, Shaw, Rhodes (O’Donnell 78), Adams, Stubley, Johnson, Kistell (Cantrell 60). Sub not used: Bentley.

RAINWORTH: Hales, Whitehead, Baxter, Wilkinson, Charlesworth, Draper (Fearon 64), McDonald (Hollis 72), Naylor, Clarke, Lynam (Topliss 77), Sweeney.

REFEREE: Mark Jones of Mansfield.

ATTENDANCE: 265.

GOALS: Rainworth—Sweeney 23; McDonald 36, 60; Baxter 49.

CAUTIONS: Rainworth—Charlesworth 45 (foul); Draper 51 (foul).

MEN OF THE MATCH: Shirebrook—Martin Rowbottom; Rainworth—Massiah McDonald