Team: Cooper (GK), Gardner, Ben Harrison, Booth, Wood, Andrews, Sheehan, James, Shaw, Hancock and Foster
Bench: Clayton, Glover, Jamie Harrison, Meechan and Tuck.
30mins-ish Ilkeston take the lead through an OG! 0-1
1 - 1 Gards
One apiece, great time to equalise.
1-1 Gardner 43mins - Ilkeston have hit the bar twice!
HT 1-1. Others:
http://EXAMPLE.com/media/kunena/attachments/1163/Capture_2013-01-05.JPG
Hmm Stafford are 3-1 at HT!
2 - 1 Foster att 454
2 - 2
2 - 2 FT
Big rough hard working side Ilkeston, aided by a poor referee who let them bully us, witton again not at our flowing best the defence seems unable to keep a clean sheet just now, not that sure playing Sheehan as a deep lying striker worked that well, I guess pritch is trying things and keeping players fresh the pack is losing in on us ! Uta
Agree CJ re ref n Ilson, but lets be honest they were a typical strong NPL side, not much guile but plenty of ‘presence’, and the type of team who traditionaly prosper at this level
Thought the referee showed very little authority today and if anything he was bullyed by their bench and players, but crucially there were no major incidents for him to pontificate on otherwise goodness help us!
Draw was a fair result imo both sides had spells where hey dominated he game alhough it does looks like Ilson are paying money out again lessons learnt from their previous boom n bust era anyone?!?
Final word for the travelling support - credit and GREAT to see and hear!
Agree with the above comments, Ilkeston are a big, strong side who will be a real test for most teams. A point is probably a fair result, although it is disappointing that we couldn’t hold onto the lead.
Great support from Ilkeston, about time clubs returned the favour!
Fair points and about the right resut I think.
Those comments about bullying will come as music to our lots ears because thats exactly what was happening to us early in the season and it shows we’ve finally got this league worked out.
We had a great visit to your place and thanks to the warm and friendly reception from everyone.
I found the museum in the shop particularly interesting showing a history of your club to be proud of.
Best wishes for the rest of the season :clap
Enjoyed the game today, 2 good sides on show I would say.
It’s good to hear you describe us as a big, strong side as earlier in the season we were getting bullied out of games and were far too lightweight. Us “manning up” and giving sides some back has been the main reason our results have picked up IMO.
Just a note on us spending money and not having learnt from previous years. Our business plan is set up in such a way that its impossible for us to spend what we haven’t got. I won’t bore you with the details but we have been very lucky and have very little running costs for various reasons. 100% of our gate receipts, sponsorship and cup money goes to the playing budget. Theres no other outside funding. This means we can only pay what we bring in.
We get decent crowds, have good sponsors and have had a couple of half decent cup runs so I’d expect us to have a top half budget in this league (though I’d imagine there’s a good 7 or 8 teams with much bigger)
You beat me to it RDD! 
I thought a draw was the right result today but it does concern me that we can’t see a game out. We did really well to get back in the game and take the lead and then we let slip again. The teams around us are slipping up and we’re not capitalizing, the chasing pack are gaining on us and if we keep giving points away from a winning position then i can’t see us being in the play-offs! I know that wouldn’t be the end of the world but if we’re trying to turn heads and get bigger gates then we’ve got to be up there challenging. right, rant over am going for a pint COME ON WITTON!
Really good game between teams wth contrasting styles, but overall the result is there or there abouts. Still early days in this league with a long way to go. We are in there pitching (or should that be Pritching) and that’s all we can ask for. We have agood team make no mistake and other clubs won’t relish meeting us either so lets just enjoy and see where this takes us.