The Iron’s Academy finally added a pre-season encounter to their hard graft in preparation for their Youth Alliance North East campaign, narrowly losing 2-1 to Chesterfield on Tuesday afternoon despite a positive performance.
The side had seen a number of their pre-scheduled encounters called off so far, with oppositions pulling out in some of those due to COVID-19.
Harrison Poulter netted United’s goal at Staveley Miners Welfare on their fantastic new 3G pitch.
Academy Manager Tony Daws said: “After 4 weeks of training and, frustratingly, games being cancelled this was our youth team’s first game of pre-season.
“We had 12 out of our 15 registered scholars available so the squad was supplemented with a number of our Under-16 players as we always try to drive the younger player forwards and promote them in to the Under-18s.
“Over the 90 minutes, we were very pleased with our performance, all of the players got a lot of playing time and we didn’t pick up any injuries.
“We dominated possession of the ball particularly in the first half and moved the ball around the pitch really well, creating countless chances that we should have scored from. We hit the crossbar four times and perhaps on another day would have been awarded three penalties.
“If we had been more clinical in front of goal we could and should have run away with the game.
“First-year striker Harrison Poulter scored our goal, Chesterfield equalised soon after and bizarrely, we lost the game 2-1 with us conceding in the last minutes of the game with a cross-cum-shot from their left-wing.”