Blyth Spartans face a 448-mile round trip to The Walks as they take on King’s Lynn Town on Saturday afternoon.
In their last outing, the Spartans were held to a goalless draw away at Blackwell Meadows against local North-East rivals Darlington.
TICKET INFORMATION
You can buy tickets online here – Spartans fans are allocated the corner between the Tennyson Road stand and the Pattrick & Thompsons stand which is shown on the stadium view. All ticket information is as follows:
- Adults – £18 standing – £20 seated
- Concessions – £16 standing – £18 seated
- 16 and under – £5 standing – £11 seated
TEAM NEWS
JJ Hooper, Billy Gordon and Lewis Knight all took part in Tuesday evening’s pre-match warm-up before Spartans’ stalemate on the road. Gordon received 90 minutes for the under-19s side during their midweek 5-2 win over Gateshead at Wensleydale, scoring two goals.
There are no current updates on the progress of JJ O’Donnell, Michael Liddle and Cedric Main but they are not expected to feature this weekend.
WHAT WE’RE SAYING
Following a stalemate against Darlington, Graham Fenton said: “I will say I’m probably a little bit disappointed with the result based on the performance, I thought that was us, up to a point, nearly as good as we have been all season.
“I thought in the first two-thirds of the pitch we caused them problems, we gave each other real good angles, we played through the thirds really well and it’s obviously clear that we have got four centre forwards out of action, so we don’t have a great deal of options.
“Mika [Ndjoli] who has joined us hasn’t played much football and was tiring towards the end, I thought he did really well considering he’s not played much 11-a-side football and we have got Joe Oliver who I don’t think has played left-wing-back in his life, so we have issues in picking a team and a squad.”
OPPOSITION
The Linnets currently sit in the relegation zone in the National League North in 21st with 14 points, winning just three games this season.
Most recently they beat Bishop’s Stortford 3-2 after Jack Smith scored the winner in the 95th minute. King’s Lynn Town’s other two wins this season came against Darlington and Alfreton Town.
WHAT THEY’RE SAYING
After beating Bishop’s Stortford and winning their first home game this season, Adam Lakeland said: “It does feel good, I thought we made real hard work of it.
“But credit to the players, because it would have been really easy for us to feel sorry for ourselves after conceding that second goal.
“And I’ve even seen teams down there whose confidence is a bit fragile go and lose their games so for us to manage to keep the set play alive and win the game hopefully that will kickstart our season now.”
LAST TIME WE MET
Both sides last faced off against each other at the turn of the new year in National League North action at Croft Park which ended in a stalemate.
Earlier in the 2022/23 campaign, Spartans were defeated 2-0 at The Walks as goals from Michael Clunan and Theo Widdrington secured three points for The Linnets in West Norfolk.
MEDIA COVERAGE
You can follow all of the action on Saturday afternoon via our social media platforms.