Wrexham 2

Steve Evans 20' Michael Proctor 86'

Darlington 0

Scorers

Saturday 02 February 2008

 

Kick Off @ 14:30



Wrexham

Starting XI:
12 Gavin Ward
02 Simon Spender
28 Phil Bolland
05 Steve Evans
15 Mike Williams
25 Neil Taylor
09 Neil Roberts
34 Danny Sonner 85'
11 Chris Llewellyn
39 Drewe Broughton 88'
35 Stuart Nicholson 76'
Substitutes:
04 Shaun Pejic
10 Michael Proctor 76'
29 Sam Aiston
37 Jeff Whitley 85'
38 Rob Duffy 88'
Stats:
11 Shots on Goal
4 Shots on Target
7 Shots off Target
54% Possession
14 Fouls Conceded
3 Corners
0 Yellow Cards
0 Red Cards

Darlington

Starting XI:
13 David Stockdale
02 Neil Austin
05 Stephen Foster 46'
04 Alan White
23 Ryan Valentine
12 Julian Joachim
14 Richard Ravenhill 59'
08 Michael Cummins
18 Paul Mayo 59'
20 Tommy Wright
29 Kevin Gall
Substitutes:
06 Ian Miller 46'
10 Clark Keltie 59'
11 Robert Purdie
15 Przemyslaw Kazimierczak (GK)
16 Gregg Blundell 59'
Stats:
4 Shots on Goal
2 Shots on Target
2 Shots off Target
46% Possession
19 Fouls Conceded
5 Corners
2 Yellow Cards
0 Red Cards

Match Notes

Venue: Racecourse Ground
Attendance: 4,013
Half Time: Wrexham 1 Darlington 0
Referee: Steven Cook

Match Incidents

20' Steve Evans (Wrexham)
53' Richard Ravenhill (Darlington)
58' Michael Cummins (Darlington)
86' Michael Proctor (Wrexham)

Match Reports

WSA: Final Whistle Podcast


BBC: Wrexham 2-0 Darlington


TEAMtalk: Dragons stun Quakers with win


Wales on Sunday: Wrexham's Steve head boy!


Wrexham FC: Wrexham 2 Darlington 0


Wrexham MAD: Wrexham 2 Darlington 0

League Two Results

Accrington Stanley 0 Wycombe 2
Barnet 0 Morecambe 1
Bury 1 Milton Keynes Dons 5
Chesterfield 1 Chester 1
Dag & Red 0 Stockport 1
Macclesfield 0 Bradford 1
Mansfield 2 Brentford 3
Notts County 1 Grimsby 1
Rochdale 0 Peterborough 2
Rotherham 0 Hereford 1
Shrewsbury 1 Lincoln City 2
Wrexham 2 Darlington 0

League Two Table

    PLD GD PTS
1 MK Dons 30 29 61
2 Darlington 28 27 53
3 Rotherham 29 15 53
4 Peterborough 28 23 52
5 Hereford 28 15 52
6 Wycombe 30 9 50
7 Chesterfield 30 16 48
8 Rochdale 27 9 47
9 Morecambe 30 2 47
10 Stockport 28 4 43
11 Grimsby 30 -6 39
12 Brentford 28 -8 39
13 Bradford 28 2 38
14 Shrewsbury 30 -1 38
15 Chester 29 -4 37
16 Barnet 26 -5 35
17 Accrington 29 -20 33
18 Notts County 29 -12 29
19 Macclesfield 29 -14 28
20 Lincoln City 29 -15 28
21 Bury 27 -12 25
22 Dag & Red 29 -22 25
23 Wrexham 28 -21 23
24 Mansfield 27 -11 22

Next Five Games

Sat 09 Feb: Peterborough (a) 15:00

Sat 16 Feb: MK Dons (a) 15:00

Tue 19 Feb: Hereford (a) 19:45

Sat 23 Feb: Grimsby (h) 15:00

Tue 26 Feb: Peterborough (h) 19:45

Match Report

Wrexham climbed off the bottom of the Football League with a 2-0 win over Darlington, courtesy of goals in each half from the head of Steve Evans and the boot of Michael Proctor.

Although we road our luck when we sent league leaders MK Dons home empty hand two weeks ago, nobody can deny we deserved the three points from this game as we completely outplayed second placed Darlington.

Steve Evans converted Danny Sonner’s first half corner to give us the advantage at half time and the Quakers only had one spell of pressure at the start of the second half and after this storm had past, Wrexham went onto to finish the game when Michael Proctor went through on goal.

Danny Sonner, who signed a contract until the end of the season in midweek, was superb in the middle of the park with the game played at his pace and he just shaded Neil Roberts and Steve Evans to the man-of-the-match award.

Drewe Broughton caused the Darlington defence a whole host of problems throughout the game with his physical approach and the constant running of his striker partner, Stuart Nicholson, also kept the Quakers backline on their toes.

The only changes from midweek came in defence with Neil Taylor replacing the injured Carl Tremarco, Mike Williams in for the suspended Richard Hope and Phil Bolland was back in for Shaun Pejic who had to settle for a place of the bench that was minus a goalkeeper.

Despite all these changes in the back line, the defence looked comfortable throughout and Steve Evans was back to his commanding self by winning the majority of balls played in.

The match started in bright sunshine and it was a similar start to the game from both sides with David Stockdale having to rush off his line in the opening minute to smother the ball at the feet of Stuart Nicholson who almost got on the end of Broughton’s flick on.

Darlington responded through Kevin Gall who had a shot blocked by the Wrexham defence and Nicholson went close to grabbing his first goal for Wrexham when his first time shot went straight at Stockdale following a flowing move down the right.

Darlington cut open the Wrexham defence for really the only time in the game down their left but thankfully the chance fell to centre-half Steve Foster, who had continued his run forward, and Gavin Ward was able to make the save.

Darlington went close again when Steve Evans misjudged the flight of the ball and Gall fired over the bar but it was Wrexham who were celebrating the first goal of the game with twenty minutes on the clock when Evans powered home a header from Sonner’s inswinging corner.

Darlington were just starting to impose themselves on the game and the timing of the goal was perfect for Wrexham but Darlington responded well to going a goal down, although they failed to test Gavin Ward in the Wrexham goal.

With the game approaching the half four mark, Nicholson should have done better from another quality set play by Sonner when he put a free header over the bar and a mix up between Steve Evans and Gavin ward almost let Tommy Wright in but both players eventually managed to clear the ball from danger.

Most of Wrexham’s free kicks were coming from fouls on Drewe Broughton and Chris Llewellyn curled the ball narrowly over the bar after Darlington had conceded another free kick.

Darlington started the second half like they had a bit of an ear bashing from manager Dave Penney and for once Wrexham’s defending looked desperate as a last ditched challenge from Mike Williams prevented the Quakers finding the breakthrough.

Richard Ravenhill was lucky to escape with just a yellow card for a knee high challenge on Neil Roberts and Michael Cummins followed him into the book five minutes later for a lunge on Danny Sonner.

Darlington continued to press and Neil Taylor had to hack clear from within the six yard box and Wrexham escaped when Gall could only fire into the side netting from close range.

Darlington introduced their remaining two substitutes for the final half hour of the game but Clark Keltie picked up an injury almost immediately and did not contribute much more to the game.

Wrexham came back into the game as the half wore on and Simon Spender was then unlucky not to have been awarded a penalty after Gall clearly shoved him in the box.

Spender had even more bad luck minutes later when he was incorrectly flagged offside after the instrumental Sonner played him in with a neat through ball on the edge of the box.

Stuart Nicholson was replaced by Michael Proctor with fifteen minutes and the substitute’s first two touches were decent opportunities on goal.

Chris Llewellyn delivered a good cross from the left wing that Proctor glanced wide and his next effort was a shot that was saved by Stockdale.

Darlington left themselves open at the back as they did away with full backs for the final ten minutes but they failed to break through the well organised Wrexham defence.

Jeff Whitley replaced man-of-the-match Sonner for the final five minutes and soon after the game was secured when Proctor raced through onto Llewellyn’s superb pass, and placed the ball past Stockdale to secure the three points.

Match Reaction

Brian Little: "Today was very pleasing. It was a very solid performance and I really thought that we deserved to win. Gavin pulled one really good save off in the first half and in fairness they had a couple of scrambles. They are good enough to score goals against most people but our defending was really pleasing today. Overall, I thought that we were strong and we played reasonably well, we changed the system slightly and it worked for us. I am pleased with the result but I am pleased with the performance more than anything else. We are unbeaten in four games now as well so that is pleasing as well. We don't want to get too carried away but that was a decent performance." [Source: Wrexham FC - click here for more]