Tony Smith reports
A RECORD Lowfields crowd saw Newark Flowserve hit six goals without reply past the team sixth in the table in the East Midlands Counties League.
The vuvuzelas mingled with chants to create a party atmosphere among the 253-strong gate as the attendance mark at Lowfields passed 250 for the first time, beating the previous best of 225 set when Flowserve staged the inaugural game under floodlights against Belper United in September.
And the team responded with a stunning display against a plucky Barrow team who were undone by striker Sam Agar as he struck a second successive hat-trick and a third in total to take his season’s goals tally to 22 in 19 games.
There was little to choose between the two sides until Agar produced a moment of magic that lifted the home side’s spirits and deflated those of Barrow in equal measure.
When Agar received the ball at distance on the left on 21 minutes, there seemed little cause for concern. An instant later, the 33-year-old former Leeds United and Bradford City man flicked the ball inside and hammered a stunning right-footed effort into the far corner of the net.
On a number of previous occasions this season similar attempts have flown high and wide, but this time his aim was true and the ball whistled into the net with the hapless custodian left dazzled by both a low sun and Agar’s brilliance.
Four minutes later and the vuvuzelas - donated to the Lowfields Barmy Army by joint-manager Craig Roche – grew in volume as a Tyrell ‘TIzer’ Shannon-Lewis effort was pushed out by the keeper into the path of Darryl Price who marked his first start of the season since his return from Collingham with a close-range strike that doubled the lead.
A curling effort from Danny Meadows came out off the bar on the half hour before Tizer had a penalty appeal turned down inexplicably by the referee after he was brought down as he rounded the keeper. But the livewire striker made no mistake four minutes before the break when he reacted the quickest to fire home his seventh of the campaign after Agar had nodded down Price’s corner form the right.
Another trip on Tizer in the box brought a positive response from the match official in stoppage time and Agar obliged from the spot to give Flowserve a four-goal cushion at the break.
That man Agar produced another moment of magic with the second half not even a minute old when he cracked home a cross from the right from Meadows, and he ran across to celebrate his hat-trick with his fan club at the front of the main stand.
Two minutes before the hour mark the industrious Jammy Lloyd got his just reward for his efforts throughout when Price chased down a loose back pass and drove the ball across the face of goal for Lloyd to finish from close range.
And that was that. Defeat for Sherwood Colliery at Eastwood means that Flowserve extend their lead to four points over a third-placed Colliery side that provide the hosts for The Highwaymen on Saturday in what, even at this stage of the season, will prove to be a proverbial six-pointer.
Newark Flowserve: 1 Joe Searson; 2 Ryan Broxholme (Curtis Price 64mins); 3 Will Rawdon; 4 Tom Potts (captain); 5 Rhys Lewis; 6 Jammy Lloyd; 7 Jack Beckett (Liam Moran 68mins); 8 Danny Meadows; 9 Sam Agar; 10 Tyrell Shannon-Lewis; 11 Darryl Price (Callum Smith 72mins).
Attendance: 253.