HALESOWEN Town and Alvechurch maintained their early season push for top five places ahead of Monday’s Bank Holiday Midlands derby matches.
Tim Flowers’s Alvechurch fought back from behind to win 2-1 at Barwell.
A Kane Richard penalty put the Leicestershire side ahead after 18 minutes – but Sam Perry levelled before the break and Joe Espada gave Alvechurch the points ahead of the holiday game with Stratford Town.
But Alvechurch’s Shay Willock was sent off in first half stoppage time.
Flowers told the club’s official YouTube channel: “To say I’m proud is an understatement. It was a sensational effort.
“Shey got sent off, but I’ll deal with it in house. If what I’m hearing is right, I’ve got some things to think about.
“I need to clarify what’s happened first. But every single bit of credit goes to the players. I’m proud as a peacock.”
Halesowen went ahead through Charlie Wragg at Stamford – but the Lincolnshire side levelled through a Jack Duffy penalty four minutes into the second half.
Yeltz boss Russ Penn told the club’s official website ahead of the Monday game with Worcester City at The Grove: Our confidence is high at the moment. We’ve trained exceptionally well since the start of the season, and picked up some huge points.
“We showed at the latter end of last season the continuity of avoiding defeats, and have extended the run to 17 games with our four results so far this campaign. We are re-energised by that, it helps to tick us over, and allowed us to start the season the way we have.
“A lot of sides have found it hard to beat us because of our chance creation. In my opinion and trying to not be arrogant, I think we should’ve scored more goals than the nine we have done so far.”
Stratford’s game at home to Bishop’s Stortford was officially abandoned with the Hertfordshire side 2-1 up – but with the Bards pushing for an equaliser after Lewis Ison’s 89th minute goal.
Bishop’s Stortford’s Harry Titchmarsh was taken to hospital with a dislocated knee late on and the referee said the game could not continue.
Bards boss Paul Davis told the club’s official YouTube channel: “The first thing obviously goes to the player, all of our thoughts from in the dressing room and at the football club are with him.
“It looked a serious one, so we hope he’s okay. The official term is that the game was abandoned. There’s a couple of reasons for that.
“Obviously, the nature of the injury, the medical staff that we’ve got didn’t feel comfortable moving the lad, and when you’ve got part time, semi-professional people, it’s really difficult for them to be put in that position.
“So I think the right thing was not to move him. The referee then made the call to abandon the game, which we all know what that means. There was a period of time left. The referee said there was at least six minutes.
“We’d just scored, so who knows what would have then happened in that six minutes, but obviously, the most important thing was that the player was tended to properly.”
Bromsgrove Sporting suffered a 3-0 defeat at home to Needham Market ahead of the derby clash at Redditch United.
Boss Scott Adey-Linforth told the club’s official YouTube channel: “It was frustrating, particularly as they were awarded two penalties.
“But we shot ourselves in the foot. I saw some positive signs though and we played some great stuff at times.”
Redditch also lost on Saturday, going down 2-0 at Leiston – both goals coming after the break.
Manager Mike Fowler told the club’s official YouTube channel: “The first half was good. The lads stuck to the game plan. It’s not an easy place to come and pick up results. Not many people do,
“But we should be sat here with three goals, which in turn, probably changes the game.”
Stourbridge went down to an 88th minute penalty from Dan Lawlor as Spalding United took the points.
It was their first defeat of their season and Glassboys manager Darryl Knights told the club’s official YouTube channel ahead of the Monday clash at Banbury: “I’ll take responsibility for today. I’ll take the praise when I make the right changes, but here, I’ll take the blame because I think when we were on top, I changed the formation.
“I changed the personnel and I probably didn’t need to, so it’s a bit of a learning curve for myself as well. Especially when we were on top and were the team looking like the most likely to score.”
