Lancaster City play out goalless draw with Worksop Town

It’s now one win, one draw and one loss in Lancaster City’s league season so far after a stalemate in Nottinghamshire.

The Dollies and newly promoted side Worksop Town drew 0-0, but there were plenty of times where the deadlock could’ve been broken.

Lancaster made three changes from their 4-2 defeat at Radcliffe.

Simon Grand made his fully Dolly Blue debut and was named Player of the Match after a commanding defensive performance.

Forwards Nic Evangelinos and Jake Connelly were the other two players who came into the side.

Jamie Mellen, Christian Sloan and Ackeme Francis-Burrell made way.

Connelly, who had scored in Lancaster’s first two games, had the first effort on goal of the match, but his header was straight at Adam Hayton.

Worksop had a decent couple of chances with just over ten minutes gone. Luke Hall latched onto a cross after some great work from Jay Rollins, but headed over the cross bar.

Around a minute later, Lewis Forshaw faced the opposition’s first attempt on goal of the afternoon, but it was a fairly simple save from Aleksandrs Starcenko’s shot.

The first clear cut opportunity, and by far the best of the game up to that point, fell to Rollins, who blasted his effort over the bar despite it looking a certainty that he would score after an error from Lancaster captain Andy Teague.

Hall and Rollins combined again with five minutes to go until the half time whistle. Hall whipped in a cross which met the head of Rollins, but Forshaw made a superb stop to keep it out.

Worksop had the ball in the back of the net just before the referee ended the half, but a high boot to Teague from Hamza Bencherif as he struck an acrobatic effort led to the goal being disallowed.

Charlie Bailey had the opportunity to give the away side the lead after the break and did well to get his shot away with the Worksop back line closing him down, but Hayton held the ball comfortably.

Bailey had a big part to play in another City attack later on in the half, this time the provider of the ball to substitute Francis-Burrell who just couldn’t quite direct his shot goalwards.

Simon Grand produced some heroics with ten minutes left by managing to head away Paul Green’s low effort while scrambling to get up off the turf.

“I thought it was a really good point, we certainly weren’t at our best, that’s fair to say," said Mark Fell, Lancaster manager.

“We had to ride out quite a few spells, Lewis has made some really really good saves from fairly point-blank range.."

However, Fell went on to say the performance was a “step in the right direction”.

He thanked Lewis Forshaw for his contribution to the club during his short loan spell from Burnley.

“Fair play to him, a 17-year-old boy who’s come in for three games and kept two clean sheets.

“He’s made some wonderful saves today and a couple of crackers at Radcliffe as well.

“Lewis can be really pleased with his time with us and he can go back to Burnley hopefully having picked up some really important traits.”

The Dollies next take on Macclesfield, another newly-promoted side, who have won their opening three games of the season.

That game is at The Giant Axe on Tuesday August 22 at 7.45pm.

Worksop Town: Hayton, Hutchinson, Wilde, Wedgbury, Bencherif (c), Broadhead, Hawkridge, Starcenko (Green 66’), Hall, Redford, Rollins (Tomlinson 78’)

Subs not used: Eastwood, Daniel, Atherton

Lancaster City: Forshaw, Clarke (Holland-Wilkinson 46’), Brownhill, Barnes, Teague (c), Grand, Carroll, Cowperthwaite, Evangelinos (Francis-Burrell 69’), C Bailey (Lawson 82’), Connelly

Subs not used: Allington, S Bailey