Doncaster League

Division 1

Tuesday 31st May 2022

Kick Off 19.00 Actual 18.54

Bentley Village 1 Askern Miners Reserves 1, attendance 155

14’ 0-1

83’ 1-1

@ Queen’s Drive

Bentley

DN5 9QB

No Admission or Programme.

This was the first game I had watched in the Doncaster League. It wasn’t a bad one to start with, as this was 2nd versus 3rd in the league table, with Bentley Village requiring a point to take the Division 1 (tier 2 of the league) title from Adwick Park Foresters, who had finished their fixtures and were top of the table on goal difference. The ground is little more than a pitch in a recreation ground, but for tonight’s game it was roped along one side and there were also three match officials appointed, which I assume would not normally be the case. A good crowd too, swelled by around 20 groundhoppers and a fair number of Adwick players, there to see if Askern could do them a huge favour.

The visitors came close to being party poopers. They went ahead after fourteen minutes, heading in at the far post, from a cross out on the left. Bentley Village looked very poor and certainly didn’t look like a team going for the title, especially one that had been unbeaten in the league this season. It remained 0-1 at the break, but the hosts piled the pressure on in the second half and the inevitable equaliser finally came, with just seven minutes left, when a mistake by the Askern ’keeper saw the ball lobbed back over him from just outside the box.