Selby Town 1-6 Yorkshire Amateur
Yorkshire Amateur produced the most clinical display of their summer with an eye-catching six goal battering of NCEL Division One promotion-chasing Selby Town.
The leading NCEL Premier Division outfit weren’t even at full strength and they inflicted a nightmare afternoon on Selby and incredibly the sixth goal came on the hour mark – under-lining their sheer dominance.
Christian Fox’s Selby looked jaded throughout and failed to show the kind of high-energy performance home fans have grown accustomed to.
Ammers starlet Casey Stewart, signed from Selby recently, was one of the main orchestrators behind the massacre. His battle with Robins captain Ryan Gothard helped set up the sixth minute opener. Gothard did enough to block Stewart’s attempted shot, but the ball fell to red hot Roy Fogarty and he calmly fired home from 12 yards.
A brief period of respite followed for Selby as they hit back immediately – Liam Flanagan setting up Selby’s new striker Mark Simpson, the legendary Garforth Town hit-man, with a fairly simple close range finish.
Despite on your viewpoint, in the last 15 minutes of the first half, Selby fell apart or the Ammers turned the screw.
Ste Crawford was presented with a simple two-yard tap-in for the second after wonderful build-up down the left by Priestley.
That man Fogarty then scored in straight-forward circumstances as he stood unmarked in the penalty area. The ball landed to his feet and because they expected the offside flag to go up, the Selby defence switched off. Fogarty finished and the goal stood.
Crawford rounded off the Ammers’ end of half carnival of great football by sneaking the ball into the bottom corner with a low effort from a difficult angle as several bodies appeared to be successfully blocking.
Worst was to follow for Selby in the second half as Stewart added the fifth after another mesmerising run.
Gibraltar International Priestley’s cross then caused George Bissett turn the ball into his own net for the sixth.
The rest of the game wasn’t played at a pedestrian pace, but it was far from entertaining. Selby were crying out for the final whistle and rarely got out of their own half with real dangerous intent.
The Ammers continued to play with real vigour and flair. Priestley went close and there were a few half chances. Six was enough and an amazing considering no Ash Flynn, James Beaston, Brad Dixon, Luke Sharry and a couple of others.
Based on this performance, what are they going to be like with everyone available? Certainly scary!
What They Said
Selby Town manager Christian Fox
“It wasn’t the best result, but they are a decent team who are going to be pushing for promotion in their league.
“It was one of those days where nothing went right. They’ve got quality players and they are going to hurt you.
“We started brightly and after we equalised I thought we had some decent chances in the first half and we could have made it 2-1. But they scored three quick goals at the end of the first half which made it game-over at 4-1 at half-time.
“The second half was a typical pre-season friendly. It is a bit of a wake-up call and we need to learn from it quickly.”
Yorkshire Amateur joint manager Craig Ogilvie
“We played really well against Emley last week, but today from start to finish we absolutely controlled the game.
“There was a partial spell for five to minutes where we didn’t, but I felt we dominated.
“This is no disrespect to Selby, but when you know how a certain team plays, it is easier to set up against. We know they play a very strict 4-3-3 and their strikers always stay high.
“We knew if nullified them and got on the ball we could overload them in the right areas.
“It was just a dominant performance. We had a lot of chances and it could have been a lot more.”
The Teams
Selby Town: Parkin, Collins, Vass, Thomas, Gothard (captain), Bissett, Freer, Clamp, Flanagan, Street, Simpson. Subs: Pearse, Cooper, Lawman, Brown, Lucas, Trialist.
Yorkshire Amateur (starting X1): Trialist, Smith, Killock, Dempsey (captain), Henry, Dean, Naidole, Crawford, Stewart, Fogarty, Priestley.
Who Was In Charge
Jamie Waters (8/10)
Man of the Match
Casey Stewart (Yorkshire Amateur)
