By Ben Lightfoot
Our second pre-season match takes place on Tuesday night against local rivals Blyth Town at Gateway Park.
Graham Fenton’s side made a perfect start to their pre-season campaign with a 2-0 win away at North Shields as Jordan Hickey and JJ Hooper got themselves on the scoresheet on Saturday afternoon.
TICKET INFORMATION
All tickets for the friendly are £5, while children are admitted for £1 with a paying adult.
TEAM NEWS
Post-North Shields, Graham Fenton explained that the upcoming fixtures against Blyth Town and Newton Aycliffe will be similar to the previous game against North Shields in the sense that it will be expected for two different sides to turn out in both half’s made up of contracted players and trialists.
OPPOSITION
Blyth Town started off their pre-season schedule last Tuesday in a fixture against North Shields at the Daren Persson Stadium which ended with Blyth Town winning 4-2.
The Braves finished sixth in the 2022/23 Northern League Division Two campaign, winning 21 of their 40 league fixtures.
Former Spartans stalwart Robbie Dale has recently made the switch to Blyth Town after spending the previous season with Ashington AFC.
WHAT WE’RE SAYING
Following our first pre-season friendly, Graham Fenton said: “It was a rusty and passive first half. Probably for 20/25 minutes or half-an-hour or so, I think it’s safe to say you can tell that North Shields have had a game and we haven’t, they were a little bit sharper and showed more quality in the first half-an-hour.
“When we got to grips with the game we looked dangerous, so on top of the two goals which were really good goals, we missed a couple of sitters in the first half and then second-half I just asked for a little bit more aggression and we got it.”
LAST TIME WE MET
The sides last met in February 2017 in the Northumberland Senior Cup Semi-Final as the Spartans won 5-2 with Dan Maguire scoring twice and Sean Reid, Adam Wrightson and Ryan Hutchinson all getting on the scoresheet too.
At the start of the same season the two played each other in a pre-season friendly where Blyth Spartans won 3-1 with Michael Richardson scoring twice and Dan Maguire getting the other.
MEDIA COVERAGE
You can follow all of the action on Tuesday via our social media platforms.