Blyth Spartans manager Mick Tait was pleased with his side’s 3-0 defeat of Berwick Rangers in its first pre-season friendly.
“Results are not that important in these games but it’s still good to win,” he said.
“Pre-season is all about getting players fit but I thought we were excellent in the first half considering we’d only trained three times although we did run out of steam in the second half which I’d expected to happen.
“I set the side up to give players as a many touches as possible in what was effectively a training session and it went well with us passing assuredly and in fact we dominated the game.”
Blyth took the lead on 25 minutes when Nicky Deverdics, the former Barnet and Gretna midfielder, drilled home past the Berwick keeper. Within two minutes John Alexander turned sweetly to volley into the top corner of the net to put the Spartans two up at half time.
Tait replace front-runners Alexander and Ian Graham with the experienced Robbie Dale and Paul Brayson as the home side continued to push forward. It was neat pass from Hooks to Brayson who duly set up Dale to finish calmly which put Blyth three goals ahead with a quarter of an hour to go.
Tait is now aiming to get some of the new players who featured in the game signed up.
“Some lads have a Football League background and are trying to get back there and I don’t resent that so we’ll just have to see who we can get to put pen to paper.”
19 year old Dan Groves, who featured in Darlington’s first team a couple of times last season played in part of the Berwick game while former Hartlepool goalkeeper Mark Cook played for the first 70 minutes before being replaced by the ex-Norwich City keeper Sam Grieveson.
With Cook likely to be playing for another local side this Tuesday, when Blyth entertain Greenock Morton, Tait is expected to take a look at keeper Jake Cunningham who has been at St. Mirren. He also hopes to give chances to a few young outfield players.
Meanwhile Tait confirmed that midfielder Simon Todd has joined Durham City.
“Toddy got a new job which was affecting his availability for us towards the end of last season and he felt he would miss too many of our games this year, plus he wanted regular football which is fair enough.”