AFC Telford United left frustrated on Wilkin’s Bucks Head bow

Kevin Wilkin’s first Telford game as manager at the New Bucks Head started promisingly, but his side spoiled their own good work and saw their mistakes compounded by other factors, defeat keeping them rooted to the foot of the table.

Lack of attentiveness is something the Bucks were guilty of, but they weren’t aided by a lack of attentiveness from the match officials.

Alfreton, under manager Billy Heath, are a side who keep things relatively simple and they wear their title as being the division’s biggest spoilers as a badge of honour.

Unfortunately for the Bucks, referee Helen Conley and her assistants seemed reluctant to crack down on the visitors’ approach, which was far too easily tolerated by the officials.

Wilkin gave debuts to his two loan signings – defender Kade Craig from Shrewsbury Town and forward Mo Faal from West Brom – and the pair acquitted themselves reasonably.

Faal partnered Nate Blissett in the forward line and Wilkin also sprang a surprise by deploying Brad Bood on the left of midfield rather than his usual position of left-back.

That move wasn’t simply to accommodate Craig, Wilkin felt Bood’s energy would serve his side well and he put in a creditable performance in an unfamiliar role.

The game had barely lasted five minutes when play was halted – the officials had spotted a drone being flown over the New Bucks Head and, presumably out of concerns for player safety, the game didn’t recommence until the drone’s pilot took their ‘toy’ elsewhere.

The game’s first chance fell to the Bucks after 12 minutes.

Alfreton conceded a free-kick 35 yards from goal and, from a wide position, Bood’s delivery was met by captain Matty Brown, but his header passed the wrong side of George Willis’s left post.

However, the visitors weren’t to survive for much longer.

In the 14th minute, Devarn Green picked up possession inside the Alfreton half and glided past left-back Danny Preston and a team-mate before putting a cross perfectly on to the head of Blissett, who couldn’t miss from inside the six-yard box.

Green leapt into Blissett’s arms in celebration, but the joy of that moment was to be short-lived.

Debutant goalkeeper Maison Campbell was in the team after an injury to Luke Pilling in the warm-up – and though he got down well to a shot from distance, he couldn’t hold the effort and Ahmed Salam bundled the rebound into the net with the Bucks defence slow to react.

Bood forced Willis to dive to his left to palm away a fierce shot as the game evened out, but Alfreton began to test Bucks’ resolve in the latter stages of the half.

A Dayle Southwell corner in injury time was to be the Bucks’ undoing, despite the ball appearing to be well out of the quadrant. As Southwell’s kick travelled through the six-yard box, no-one picked up midfielder Connor Branson and he stole in to drive it hard past Campbell, who also appeared to be impeded.

With an advantage to protect, the visitors began to push the boundaries in the second half and, having gotten away with it, they subsequently did it some more.

Brown was painfully blocked off by Matt Rhead as he tried to get his head on to a free-kick, Faal appeared to have his shirt tugged trying to make something of a Jordan Piggott cross, and keeper Willis’s lengthy deliberations over every goal-kick were irking the home support.

In fairness to Alfreton, they are by no means the only team to employ such tactics, but their lack of subtlety about it made referee Conley’s ambivalence baffling.

In the 70th minute, Wilkin decided to try and change the rhythm and flow by introducing substitute Jason Oswell.

Green almost set up Oswell for an equaliser, but the substitute – grappling with a defender and being pulled to the floor – could only direct the ball wide.

Kobe Chong replaced the tiring Bood, and Green made way for Jamie Allen, but the Bucks’ increasingly despairing efforts to level could be labelled as ‘hopeful’ rather than having any real conviction.

A flurry of late corners and free-kicks were seen off by the visitors, and the spoilers claimed their spoils at the final whistle. It hadn’t been pretty, but the home side had been given a lesson in collectiveness and knowing how to win ugly. Bucks fans would surely settle for that at this moment in time.

Telford: Campbell, Piggott, Craig, Brown (c), Flowers, Nolan, Ekpolo, Green (Allen 85), Bood (Chong 77), Faal (Oswell 70), Blissett. Subs not used: Daniels, Moore.

Alfreton: Willis, Clackstone, Preston, Cantrill, Smith, Wiley, Salam (Preston 66), Branson, Rhead, Southwell (Lund 50), Hobson. Subs not used: Askew, Butterfield, Denton.