Town left to rue their luck after Kendal nick the win
Market Drayton Town completed a double best forgotten as they lost 3-2 at struggling Kendal’s all-but flooded Parkside Road Stadium.
Second from bottom in the Evo-Stik NPL West, Kendal have won just five games all season – and two have been against Drayton in the space of just three weeks.
Why, is a mystery to most. Just as at Greenfields 21 days earlier, when they saw a two-goal lead transformed into an inexplicable 4-2 defeat, Drayton started well, led and looked the far superior side.
The one drawback was they weren’t converting their chances – but these were being created with such regularity it didn’t seem overly worrying at the time.
Then Drayton had two goals disallowed for offside, Kendal grabbed an outrageous 29th-minute lead through David Keenan and keeper Ash Rawlins was carted off to hospital with a hand injury.
Unruffled, Drayton reshuffled, gave defender Matt Ballard the gloves and resumed battering the home rearguard.
They hit a post and had two more shots scrambled off the line before Jordan Davies equalised. And when James Jennings struck in the first minute of the second half for a 2-1 lead, it simply seemed like justice being done.
But then everything again started to go haywire. Kendal equalised with a controversial penalty by Aaron Helliwell – decided, apparently, by a second official four times further from the incident than the referee.
And with Drayton by now fearful nothing would go right for them, Ryan Moore proved them right by heading a 75th-minute winner.
“You couldn’t believe it,” said Town manager Martyn Davies. “Their manager was even good enough to admit it at the end – he actually apologised for what he described as another smash and grab.
“But while luck was certainly against us, we were partly to blame. At 2-1 up we could have had another five or six with the game all over.”
“We should have made more of our chances – because when you don’t, this game has a nasty habit of making you pay.”
Drayton have a tough re-arranged fixture on Saturday, away to a Runcorn Linnets side out to rekindle title hopes that were hit hard by the weekend’s 5-0 setback at Kidsgrove Athletic.
