Preview | Alfreton Town (H) | National League North | 2023/24

Blyth Spartans return to Croft Park for National League North action as they host Alfreton Town on Saturday afternoon.

The Spartans qualified for the Emirates FA Cup third qualifying round, where they will host Worksop Town next Saturday, having advanced on Monday night in the replay fixture of the second qualifying round beating Bradford (Park Avenue) 3-1 as the game was forced into extra time.

Ticket Information

You can buy tickets with cash or card at the gate on the day or online here. All ticket information is as follows:

• Adults - £15 standing
• Concessions (over 65) - £9
• 11-16 Years & Students - £6
• Under-10s are admitted for free when accompanied by a paying adult.

To be seated in the Port of Blyth main stand, an extra £2 cost will be incurred for each category.

Team News

Nicky Deverdics was named among the substitutes on Monday evening in West Yorkshire; he will be pushing to make his mark in the side once again as his fitness gears up following injury.

It is unclear as to whether Jordan Hickey will be in contention to feature having been withdrawn last Saturday against Bradford (Park Avenue) at Croft Park due to picking up a knock.

Lewis Knight and Billy Gordon are both progressing with their respective injuries but no stance on their potential comeback dates are set in stone just yet.

What We're Saying

After defeating Bradford (PA) to enter the third qualifying round of the FA Cup, Graham Fenton said: "It wasn't terrible in that first half, it was just poor in the second half. So obviously we've talked about a few things with general behaviour and application, and throughout the whole of the game, it was better.

"It was a funny game tonight, I thought we pretty much controlled the first half, thought we played fairly well, gave a poor goal away and scored a very good goal and then second half we lost our way again for some reason.

"We stopped passing the ball, stopped helping each other out, they obviously started pressing higher and we couldn't quite handle that on the night and we stuck at it and when we were going through our poor periods we stuck together and got through that second half."

Opposition

Last Saturday Alfreton Town advanced into the FA Cup third qualifying round at the first time of asking as they beat Cleethorpes Town 4-2, two years to the day when Cleethorpes beat Alfreton 1-0 in the second qualifying round in 2021.

In the National League North, The Reds sit eight in the league table on 14 points, one point behind Blyth.

Billy Heath's men have won four of their opening nine league matches, and in their last league outing, they managed a 4-0 victory over Boston United.

What They're Saying

Following Saturday's 4-2 victory against Cleethorpes Town, Billy Heath said: "I thought Cleethorpes were excellent again, we tried to say to the boys what was coming, they've got a good team, they've got good players who shouldn't be playing at the level of that.

"And we were all at sea first half, you get an opportunity with a missed penalty after starting poorly and really our first attack we get a penalty which should settle us down and we missed it, that's compounds to who we are playing.

"They get the goal quite rightly and like I say we found ourselves back in the game at half-time as we're going up and the second half was better."

Last Time We Met

The sides last met in April at the Impact Arena Stadium when Matthew Rhead's second half goal broke the deadlock in a 1-0 victory for The Reds.

At Croft Park earlier in the season, Blyth thought they'd won it as the Spartans were leading 2-1 until Rhead equalised with the last kick of the game on the 98th minute securing a rescued point for The Reds to take back to Derbyshire.

Media Coverage

You can follow all of the action on Saturday afternoon via our social media platforms and BlythLive on Mixlr from 2:45pm.