Scunthorpe United v Cambridge

Saturday, April 16, 2005

Football League Two

Scunthorpe United :
Musselwhite, Byrne, Crosby, Hinds (Butler 66), Ridley, Sparrow, Kell (Taylor 65), Baraclough, Beagrie, Torpey (Keogh 80), Hayes
Subs not used:
Corden, Evans

Cambridge :
Ruddy, Goodhind, Duncan, Tann, Newey, Nicholls, Somner, Toner (Quinton 73), Chillingworth, Roberts (Turner 68), Bramble
Subs not used:
Gleeson, Webb, Bimson

SULSESC REPORT

by Andy Skeels at Glanford Park

AND so to the business end of the season, as Mr. Laws likes to describe it.

Four games to go, down to fourth on the strength of Swansea's Friday night victory over Oxford, but heartened by Southend's unexpected slip-up at the hands of Orient.

This is not the time for faint hearts but for the first 30 minutes or so of this vital encounter, there were certainly plenty of flutters as relegation-threatened Cambridge took the game to the Iron.

We had been warned beforehand in the Honest Lawyer by the legendary Randall Butt, the 'Bob Steels of the Cambridge Evening News', that his lot "are normally all right...until they let the first goal in".

Randall wouldn't believe our pessimistic predictions of the game being an away banker, largely thanks to that big, fat zero currently residing in Cambridge's away win column. Any Scunthorpe fan, of course, would have known that a home defeat was almost a certainty in such circumstances.

For once, however, and thankfully, we were wrong - and Randall's forecast proved spot on as Camridge did all right until conceding the first.

The Iron were indebted to two terrific saves from Paul Musselwhite in the opening half which kept them on level terms, and then poached a thoroughly undeserved opening goal out of nothing from Richard Kell shortly before the break.

A 1-0 lead at half-time had come totally against the run of play, but certainly calmed the home nerves.

After changing ends, United began to look much more like a promotion-chasing outfit as Cambridge struggled to reassert their earlier superiority and when Andy Crosby glanced home a Peter Beagrie corner for the second, the three points were in the bag.

The visitors promptly fell apart and two goals in quick succession from Cleveland Taylor - the first an excellent, measured shot into the bottom corner from outside the box - might not have been the only additions to the scoreline had United been determined to force the issue.

As it was, 4-0 was extremely harsh on Cambridge, although a welcome boost to our goal difference which might prove critical in the final reckoning.

It's the Cods next. A home banker if ever there was one. So let's hope we've got that prediction wrong as well...