Saturday, April 17, 2004

CAPTAIN marvel Carl Heeley steered in a stoppage time header to claim a sensational win at St George's Lane on Saturday.

It capped an incredible six-minute turnaround in which Worcester City emerged from the jaws of defeat to steal a remarkable victory against Eastbourne with Heeley and Barry Woolley the last-gasp heroes.

Woolley had equalised on 85 minutes before the talismanic Heeley stunned just about everybody in St George's Lane by nabbing an unlikely winner.

Quite how City won is a mystery but frankly who cares! The record books will show a 2-1 win and sometimes that is all that counts. John Barton's side also virtually ensured fifth spot in the Dr Martens Premier Division and still with a good chance of maintaining their current fourth slot.

However that all appeared a mile away when Scott Ramsay out-muscled Heeley to fire a low shot past Shaun Hayes on 13 minutes to put the dampener on what had been a fairly bright start by City.

A fourth defeat in five beckoned particularly as a make-shift back line, including Liam McDonald at left-back, was clearly at sixes and sevens as it struggled to cope with Ramsay and his livewire partner Mark Goodwin.

The seeds of their apparent destruction were being sewn around the pace of Goodwin and their ability to puncture City's lines or catch the home side ball watching.

John Barton's team, without a goal in four games, and confidence dented by the early goal suddenly resembled one of yesterday's London Marathon runners that had hit the 22 mile mark and run out of steam.

Jaded and flat, they rarely troubled Lee Hook in the Borough goal bar the odd explosion of pace by Leon Kelly.

Adam Webster clipped the bar with a header from City's best move but as the first-half closed, Goodwin left the pitch knowing he could have put the match out of Worcester's reach.

First he chipped narrowly over on 34 minutes after carving open Woolley and Heeley and then spurned an even better chance when he was granted the freedom of the penalty area but curled a left foot shot just wide with Hayes beaten.

Hayes, on his home league debut might have wished for sterner defences ahead of him, but gaps routinely appeared and Daren Pearce allowed the young keeper to save with the goal a likelier outcome.

The omens were not exactly good for Barton but in a bold gamble, he thrust on Darren Middleton and Mark Owen to spice up his attacking options.

City plugged away but with little enterprise until the 85th minute when Jai Stanley snapped into life and whipped over a superb cross for the easiest of headers for Woolley.

A point in the bag everyone thought but in the 92nd minute Kelly set off on a final charge and won a free kick 15 yards from the box. Adam Wilde's ball from the left was perfect and there was Heeley climbing to head in at the back post - unbelievable!

"Winning was the important thing, it didn't matter how we achieved it," said Heeley. "For long periods it looked like we weren't going to get it but we kept going and fortunately got a couple of late goals.

"I don't think we've ever given up, the commitment and spirit is good. A lot of people have been waiting to jump on the fact we were going to have another tail off to the season. It hasn't been convincing but we've done something we haven't done in the last two or three seasons which is win one of our last six or seven games."

Barton echoed his skipper's sentiments: "We conceded a poor goal early on and were then chasing the game against a decent side on a lively pitch. But they stuck at it and persevered, particularly Jai. He wants to play and you can see that. It wasn't going for him but he stuck at it and he's put in probably the cross of the season for Barry."

"It wasn't pretty, some of the stuff was of poor quality but I'd like to know where there was a good game in our league today," he added.