The Northern League fixtures come thick and fast, Ryhope travelling to Whitley Bay on Tuesday for their second of three consecutive league away days.
Colliery Welfare could really do to return from Hillheads with a few points, as they extended the run to four consecutive defeats at Bishop Auckland on Saturday.
However, the performance wasn’t bad at Heritage Park, the result slightly unfair to Colliery Welfare who had some good spells in the match but made some mistakes at the back.
We also came back from Bishop Auckland with additions to our injury list, Davey Gordon suffering a major blow with a torn Achilles, and Carl Jones came off injured on his debut and is another doubt. This adds to the likes of Ben Riding, Chris Trewick and Elliott Woods.
We come up against a side who are also in need of a positive result.
Like us, Whitley Bay opened the season with a win (beating Seaham Red Star at home 4-2), but have had a run of three league defeats since including being on the wrong end of an 8-0 battering by Dunston.
A difficult start for Andy Gowens’ side who finished 16th last season in Northern League Division One on 51 points.
Whitley Bay added the likes of Jack Foalle, Ibby Hassan, Adam Redford and Stepehen Ramsey to their squad this season, the latter of those players having a loan spell at Recreation Park last season while getting back to fitness.
Ryhope will hope for a much better performance than last time out at Hillheads, where they suffered a 7-0 defeat in October last year.
As ridiculous as it sounds, the 7-0 result doesn’t quite tell the full story. Ryhope had the better of the opening exchanges and had plenty of chances to take the lead before Peter Glen-Ravenhill’s strike in the 35th minute (the first of a hat-trick).
From there Ryhope seemed to capitulate, Whitley Bay added a couple more goals, Ryhope went down to 10-men and the Bay onslaught didn’t stop.
We also had a poor result at home, losing 3-2 after coming back from a goal down twice. James Ellis and Paul Braithwaite on the scoresheet for Welfare.
Northern League Division One
Venue: Hillheads Park, Whitley Bay, NE25 8HR
Date: Tuesday, August 21
Kick-Off: 7:30PM
