Saturday, November 9, 2002

HIGH-flying Southport maintained their challenge for a play-off spot with a smash-and-grab win over Hereford United in the Nationwide Conference on Saturday.

The Lancashire visitors withstood intense pressure from the Bulls and scored twice against the run of play, the opener following a goal-keeping blunder, to chalk up their first-ever victory at Edgar Street.

United, who have slipped to eighth-place in the table, will be wondering how they managed to finish pointless after being in control for long periods.

Once again they had a lot of possession and worked the ball into threatening areas without creating too many clear-cut openings.

Worryingly, Hereford have collected only one point from their last five league matches, but the outcome may have been different had they taken the lead on half-an-hour through on-loan striker Chukki Eribenne.

The Bournemouth player picked up a through ball from Steve Guinan, recovered swiftly after tumbling inside the area under a fair challenge by Barry Jones, but he blasted his shot against the underside of the crossbar with goalkeeper Kevin Welsby rooted to the spot.

Eribenne tested the visiting goalkeeper with three other shots in the opening half, while Danny Williams and Paul Parry both kept Welsby on his toes with efforts from distance.

Southport appeared devoid of attacking ideas and had Hereford to thank for the manner in which the Sandgrounders broke the deadlock with their first on-target effort in the 51st minute.

Hereford goalkeeper Matt Baker fumbled a routine corner from Dean Howell and, although he managed to get a hand to the follow-up shot from Steve Whitehall, the ball fell for Southport's Steve Soley, who made no mistake from close range.

To compound United's agony the original corner was needlessly conceded after skipper Ian Wright, under no obvious pressure from a visiting player, sliced his attempted clearance.

United laid siege to the Southport goal in a 15-minute spell which saw Michael Rose's fierce drive scream narrowly wide and Andy Tretton balloon the ball high over the bar.

Then, with the match in added time, Southport broke quickly from a Hereford corner and Baker could only push Marc Lloyd-Williams' shot into the path of Peter Thomson who tapped the ball home.