BLACKWELL MW 1 CHESTERFIELD 1

Chesterfield's Youth Team grabbed a last minute goal to earn a draw at Blackwell Miners Welfare in their first game of the season.

First year scholar Kieron Davies neatly slotted the ball home to equalise Darren Newell's 52^nd minute opener for the hosts, who staged the match at their Scandolins ground rather than at their normal Primrose Hill home.

Sixty spectators saw a competitive game that had one ugly moment when Sam Smith was cynically taken out of the game by a Blackwell defender, a tackle that had Spireites Youth boss Dave Bentley threatening to take his side off the field.

The news on Smith wasn't as bad as first feared. Bentley said; "It looks like just a nasty knock on his knee. It was a scandalous tackle, the boy should have been sent off straight away without the referee qualming about whether it was a friendly or not. I made my point and I think the referee listened to me and he asked the player to leave the field and be replaced. I'm a bit disappointed in the player who made the tackle, he's not even been up to Sam and asked him if he's OK, he just walked off."

Alex Winfield, Ross Burns, Kieron Davies, Jordan Bowery and Jimmy Adcock all had chances for Chesterfield but not until the dying stages did they convert.

On the lads' show, he added; "I thought they performed very well, we've been doing things in training, trying to get the ball into forward positions nice and sharply and not play square or back and I thought we did that very well throughout the game. We played little triangles, played round them and played some very good football on what wasn't such a good surface."

Bentley had one main aim from the game; "Match fitness is the key at this stage. We've done all of our hard work on the training ground as far as running is concerned and with the matches now coming into force, match fitness becomes more important."

On the first year scholars, Dave said; "I think we've got a very bright bunch this year, I'm hoping that we can go on and do really well, especially of they keep listening and performing like they've been doing in training, they've been magnificent in that respect, I've not had a minute's bother from them. When they came into the club, we knew that they've been our best U16 squad for a long time and hopefully we can get some results from that, maybe not this year but next year I think we'll be very strong."

Next up; "We've a friendly against a college team on Friday morning against a college team at Cylinders, and after that we go to Teversal on Monday evening."

Team: Matt Malak (Scott Webb 46), Ryan Granger, Richie Holmes, Chris Tingay (Sandy Neisig-Moller 46), Sam Clare, Ross Burns (Kieron Davies 46), Martyn Freestone (Sam Smith 46) (Freestone 75), Craig Clay, Adam Smith (Jimmy Adcock 46), Jordan Bowery, Alex Winfield (Tendayi Darikwa 46).

Goals: Newell 56 (Blackwell), Davies 90 (Chesterfield).