Tamworth 1-0 Worcester City
Vanarama Conference North
Jonny Bonell reports from The Lamb Ground
Attendance: 810
THERE was to be no late Christmas cheer for Worcester City as their last game of 2014 saw the eight-game unbeaten league record come to a disappointing end at Tamworth.
Paul Green’s close-range finish 19 minutes from time was all that separated the two as The Lambs secured a 1-0 victory and made sure they ended the year in perfect fashion by securing their seventh straight league win.
Worcester gave as good as they got but ultimately it wasn’t enough and the Blue and Whites tasted defeat in the Conference North for the first time since September 20.
Manager Carl Heeley said: “We shouldn’t have lost the game that’s for certain, we had them chasing shadows in the first half and the only think I could be critical of at half time was we hadn’t worked the goalkeeper.
“You are never going to go unbeaten forever, runs are going to come to an end but I think we have shot ourselves in the foot.
“I am not taking anything away from Tamworth because they are a good side and they are on a good run but I am frustrated in ourselves because we have been better than that and I think we have let ourselves down a little bit.”
There was nothing of note to shout about in an evenly-battled first 15 minutes as returning defender Wayne Thomas rifled a cross-come-shot across the face of the goal and Connor Gater had to throw himself in the way of Javan Vidal’s strike.
It was a case of the two in-form sides clearly cancelling each other out in an end-to-end yet slightly disappointing contest.
Thomas made a dart to the back post to head an Ellis Deeney delivery just wide after 30 minutes before Dave Hibbert had his shot from the edge of the box charged down by the former Tamworth man, but in truth those arriving in Staffordshire expecting a belated Christmas cracker were being severely let down.
With four minutes left of the first period Graham Hutchison failed to get anything on another Deeney set-piece and despite both sides trying to play the right way the best thing a whistle-happy Robert Massey Ellis did was bring the first 45 to a close.
Tamworth player/manager Andy Morrell replaced himself with Brendon Daniels at the interval in bid to spark some life into the contest and Connor Taylor found the winger in space on the edge of the box 30 seconds after the restart but Daniels somehow ballooned his effort way over the top.
The substitute made a better fist of things two minutes later when he turned Hutchison and forced Jose Veiga into the first meaningful save of the game, no matter how routine it was for the experienced stopper.
Both sides knew a win would put them a step closer to their play-off ambitions and the introduction of Daniels had certainly given the hosts the impetus as his dangerous cross was inches away from finding Dave Hibbert in the Worcester box.
Deeney squared another free-kick which was sliced just wide by Connor Gater but it was the visitors who were starting to boss the game and they did break the deadlock with just 19 minutes remaining.
Thomas went into the book for a rash challenge on captain Green and from the resulting free-kick Daniels’ dangerous ball took a slight deflection and fell to the feet of Green who prodded home from inside the six-yard box.
Heeley threw on both Tristan Dunkley and another former Tamworth man Nick Wright in a bid to inject some pace on the counter, but it wasn’t to be as their unbeaten league run came to a disappointing end.