Whitley Bay urged to bounce back from FA Vase exit

Whitley Bay have been challenged to use the disappointment caused by their FA Vase first round defeat against Barton Town as motivation to secure success on other fronts this season.

The four-time Vase winners had high hopes of progressing into Monday’s second round draw and building on a promising start to the season as they prepared to host the Northern Counties East League Premier Division side on Saturday.

However, it was the visitors who looked the more likely of the two sides to open the scoring during the first half at Hillheads as Lewis Stephens, Dan Buttle and Fraser Papprill all tried their luck without success.

The Northern League side improved marginally after the restart but were grateful for a fine stop from goalkeeper Mauro Asikaogu as he made a quite outstanding stop to deny visitors winger Ali Aydemir.

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Golden opportunity

After being limited to half-chances by a disciplined Barton side, Whitley were given a golden opportunity to find a breakthrough as the visitors were reduced to ten men when defender Papprill was shown a second yellow card for a foul on Mackenzie Sharpe with ten minutes remaining.

Callum Larmouth was narrowly off target with the resulting free-kick before Macheck Kanda headed wide from close range after he got on the end of a fine cross from full-back Josh Stewart.

That forced the tie into a penalty shoot-out, and it was Barton who held their nerve to secure a 4-3 win from the spot and land a place in Monday’s draw.

Action from Whitley Bay’s FA Vase defeat against Barton Town.

Disappointment

For Whitley, three targets remain as they look to continue pushing at the top of the Northern League Division One table and progress in the Brooks Mileson Memorial League Cup and Northumberland Senior Cup.

Assistant manager Barry Rizza could not hide his disappointment in the aftermath of Saturday’s defeat – but stressed the importance of moving on as quickly as possible by focusing their attention on hard work on the training pitch.

He told The NLP: “The club has history in this competition and it’s something we wanted to do for the club and the fans.

Regroup

“I can’t put my finger on it today but it just didn’t click for us. 

“Over 90 minutes I don’t think we deserved to come away with a win and it didn’t click in all areas so it’s something we have to address.

“Any time we don’t get a win is a disappointment, especially in such a big competition but we will regroup, get on the training pitch and go again.

“There are some very good teams in this league that have hit a sticky point before we have and we didn’t expect to start so well – but we have and we have to build on that.

“We are in this position so we have to grab the opportunity with both hands and kicking on.”

Whitley Bay now have a free midweek to prepare for next Saturday’s home game against a Kendal Town side that moved into third place in the Northern League Division One table with a 6-1 hammering of North Shields.

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