A fine goal from Tyrone Clark O'Connell won the A5 El Classico for Atletico, beating
10 man Atherstone at Sheepy Road, as former AFC player Gregg Webb got himself sent off.
In a game that could never be described as a 'classic' in any form AFC ground out a
gritty result against an Atherstone side who had lost heavily in the week and were
determined not to repeat the same. Phil Smith was the busier of the two goalkeepers
early on as he saved from Hinckley's Alex Morris and Luke Richards, with Matt Gardner placing
two chances just wide of the goal. On the half hour Adders were reduced to 10 men
when ex Hinckley Gregg Webb, who was Atherstone's captain for the game, was shown a
straight red card for violent conduct. However AFC did not capitalise on this immediately,
failing to test Smith again before the break, though Sam Arnold was called into action with
Adders best chance of the first half, an over hit back pass from Morris that Arnold
dived to his right and pushed around the post.
Atletico did open the scoring 5 minutes into the second half, when Matt Gardner took the
ball on his chest in the area, but was bundled over as he was about to shoot. Gardner
stepped up to take the penalty, which Smith initially saved, but had come two paces
off his line allowing himself to get closer to the ball. Gardner re-took his penalty, this
time scored, and Smith was booked for still protesting about the first effort. Gardner
had the ball in teh net again 5 minutes later, but was judged to be offside, before a
break away saw Atherstone equalise. Jordan Rushton mis-timed his tackle on Josh Nash and
Adders were awarded their own penalty, which Liam Bailey scored levelling the scores.
Tyrone Clark-O'Connell was on as a substitute and with almost his first touch could've
headed Hinckley back into the lead, but his far post effortwas off target and the wrong
side of the post. Clark-O'Connel made up forthat minutes later with an excellent solo
goal worthy of winning the match, when with 20 minutes left he received the ball on the
left, cut inside to the edge of the area and curled the ball around Smith into the top
right corner of the goal, giving AFC back the lead. In the final moments Gardner was
again unlucky in front of goal, when he rounded Smith, but Matt Sylvester scrambled back
to hack the ball off the line. However that didn't matter as the final whistle blew moments
later and Atletico had picked up another hard fought 3 points.
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Atherstone Town match details
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