Southport Bow Out of FA Trophy after Heavy Defeat to Chesterfield

Southport exit the FA Trophy after a 6-1 defeat at Vanarama National League leaders Chesterfield and whilst the visitors can feel the 6-1 scoreline flattered the hosts they can have no real complaints about the result.

It started very brightly with Niall Watson giving the home defence plenty to think about and when Richis Bennett gave Southport the lead on 17 minutes thoughts of a shock were on the cards.

The lead lasted 16 minutes before the home side stepped up a gear and equalised.

It had been a very good first half for the visitors but as it wore on Chesterfield’s pace and movement was starting to cause all sorts of problems for the makeshift Southport rearguard. If we could have gone in all square at half time it may have been a different story but the hosts took the lead on 44 minutes.

Whilst we went on to concede four more goals in the second period at 3-1 we twice went close to pegging back the lead but a highly controversial non award of a free kick after a blatant foul on Josh Hmami went unpunished and the fourth goal well and truly killed off any hopes of a comeback.

Chesterfield, fileding a much weakened side looked very good and obviously have great strength in depth. We didn’t help oursleves with some slack defending at times but also created some good openings without troubling Ryan Boot in the home goal on too many occasions.

With Bishop’s Stortford winning this afternoon it will mean we have a blank Saturday on January 13th.

Line Up: Renshaw, Thomson, Doyle, Flowers. Watson, Morgan, Quansah, Hmami, Bainbridge (Carver 65), Holmes(Walton 65) Bennett(O’Neill 82)

Unused Subs: F Heath, Burgess, Kilcullen, McMillan

Attendance 2156 with 259 away supporters

Media MOTM: Niall Watson