Vase Success
Flowserve’s class shines Athrough in the end
by TONY SMITH
NEWARK FLOWSERVE marched on into the last 32 of the FA Vase with a comprehensive 3-1 win at AFC Mansfield on a bitterly cold Tuesday evening at Forest Town.
The third round tie of the national competition had been postponed at the weekend because of a frozen pitch, and it was again in doubt on Tuesday because of a generator that refused to play ball.
With a magnificent turnout of 100 Newarkers travelling to Mansfield, outsinging their hosts in an attendance of 160, it would have been a long trudge home for nothing. But the floodlights finally flicked into life, allowing the tie featuring the last remaining Nottinghamshire sides to get underway just before 8.35pm.
Just five minutes had elapsed when home skipper Phil Buxton fired his side ahead with a powerful finish after the ball had been worked along the edge of the box into his path, but the response from the Highwaymen was swift and effective.
Jammy Lloyd pounced on a quarter of an hour, steering home the equaliser after Danny Meadows had squared the ball across the face of goal from the right, and the remainder of the first period was all Newark as the home goal led a charmed life.
But it was after the break that the men in blue came fully alive, and they were rewarded with two fine goals that earned their passage into the fourth round, and warmed the cockles of the massed ranks of travelling supporters that had eschewed a warm night in front of the telly.
The second half was only ten minutes old – though 10pm was fast approaching – when Ben Hutchinson powerfully headed home from Kyle Dixon’s corner from the left, and both Meadows and Sam Agar – back in the Flowserve ranks as a duel-signing – went close before the coup de grace.
That came with just nine minutes left when Hutchinson produced a glorious flick with the outside of his mid-air boot to release sub Keylun Pollard, and his ball across the box was fired home by Meadows to bring the curtain down.
A trip to Lancashire to face Longridge Town or Cheshire to meet Congleton Town awaits Flowserve in round four. The dream lives on.
Newark Flowserve: 1 Joe Searson; 2 Lavell White; 3 Jurelle Phillip; 4 Tom Potts (captain); 5 Mitch Robinson; 6 Jammy Lloyd; 7 Danny Meadows; 8 Kyle Dixon (Jack Beckett 89mins); 9 Ben Hutchinson (Jahred Russell 92mins); 10 Elliot King (Keylun Pollard 61mins); 11 Sam Agar.
Attendance: 160.