Jamie Brooks slid in a second-half winner to give the Blues their first win over Retford and continue the impressive start to the Central Midlands League North season, with a 3-2 win. Retford scored twice in the second half to level the match, but the Blues kept their cool to find the winner.
The opening exchanges were scrappy with Retford having a few half-chances but not causing goalkeeper Nathan Burrows too many problems.Town took the lead out of the blue, when a good passage of football resulted in Andy Smith puttino in a cross for Dom Swingler, who got the slightest of touches to glance in a header past Elkington in the Retford goal.
They doubled the advantage with Swingler’s second, a tap-in from five yards after a Danny Purves corner caused problems for the defence. Retford looked dangerous on the break, and on more than one occasion defender Will Nelson saved Town with a last-ditch block. Reece Self headed wide before the break before Sam Wilford struck the post with a long-range effort, Swingler missing out on a hat-trick as he fluffed the rebound. Kieran Wall saw a volley well saved by the keeper, although the offside flag had already been raised.
Retford pulled one back on the hour-mark when a cross found Tomlinson who stabbed the ball in from close range. A potentially match-changing moment came when Nelson was judged to have brought down Tomlinson as the two ran towards goal. Despite a long tirade directed at the referee by the Retford player to issue a red card which really called for some response from the official, Nelson escaped with a yellow. The equaliser came with 15 minutes left when the ball bounced over Smith’s head, releasing Clarke who kept his composure to beat Burrows. Just when it seemed that the match would end all square, a brilliant break from defence eventually saw a crossfield pass find sub Jamie Brooks, who reached the ball just before the keeper to slide a shot on target. Chasing defenders attempted to intercept the ball before it rolled over the line, but it just crept in to give Newark a second victory of the season.
Joint-manager Tony Joynes said: “Normally when a team comes from two goals behind they have the momentum and are favourites so we showed great character to get the win. We had to change our formation early on as we could see what we were trying wasn’t working, and once that had happened we played very well.”