Sandgrounders effort fills gaffer with pride
JIM Bentley’s Southpport side emerged with just one point from their Easter weekend double-header – but the manager was proud of his players efforts.
A goalless draw at Farsley Celtic on Good Friday was followed by an agonising 1-0 defeat against Scunthorpe United at Haig Avenue on Easter Monday.
The Iron snatched a win with an 88th-minute goal to end a resilient defensive performance from The Sandgrounders. With limited attacking options availabe to Bentley, it was always going to be a tough ask but with Harry Flowers and Adam Anson commanding in the back line it looked like there was going to be no way through.
It was scrappy goal that won the game for the visitors with Max Kouogun, the same player who scored the only goal in the return game, netting from close range to leave Port empty handed.
Chances for Southport were few and far between but so were the chances for the high flying visitors and 0-0 always seemed a likely outcome until the late heartbreak.
Bentley said two games in such quick succession is a tall order for part-time clubs.
“Full-time clubs can get that little bit of recovery and do the little turn arounds quickly,” he said. “We’d obviously travelled on Friday and and had a big shift on a difficult pitch. We’ve come back home and had suspensions, injuries right through the team so were are a little bit stretched.
“But every one of the players on the pitch put a right shift in and you couldn’t argue with that. Scunthorpe played their part as well, it was in good spirits, a battle, a good, competitive game. I was really proud of our fans, they made great noise even when we went one down and really got behind us and clapped us off and rightly so. I would say a non-negotiable is you represent the shirt and you’re flat out in every game and you could see that they appreciated that.
“We’re exhausted, it was an absolute killer because it’s hard to take.”
The Easter Monday defeat came days after a dreadful spectacle in a stalemate at Farsley Celtic with very few chances at either end.
Southport started well with Josh Hmami going close after 40 seconds but after that the bobbly pitch and the wind played a big part and very little else happened.
Danny Lloyd in the first half and Richie Bennet late on had half chances but overall it was a game to forget.
Farsley were reduced to 10 men late on when Tom Allan picked up a second booking but the visitors were unable to capitalise on the man advantage.
Next up for Southport is the trip to Darlington on Saturday and, despite having passed the 50-point mark, Bentley is taking nothing for granted.
“I feel like we’re still in the mix of the bottom end, we haven’t done enough work yet so we need to get our own house in order and we can put it to bed ourselves. It’s massively in our hands, even a point might be enough at the minute, but I did say I don’t think the magic 50 point mark is going to be enough this year. If you get a team that are so detached at the bottom, that means the other teams are all getting an extra couple of points here and there so that magic 50 point mark will always go up. We’re on 53 at the minute but it might take a little bit more, it might not, who knows?
“But all we can do is not look around too much and worry too much. All our energies have got to go into Darlington on Saturday and that’s it.”