Lowestoft Town 4, Whitley Bay 0

Mar 23 2008 Sunday Sun

WHITLEY Bay have a gigantic mountain to climb if they are to reach Wembley.

But manager Ian Chandler insisted last night that the Seasiders are still in with a chance of erasing Lowestoft Town’s first leg advantage.

Just about everything that could go wrong for the Tynesiders did so in Suffolk.

Not only did they concede a fourth-minute goal, but they were reduced to 10 men in the 14th minute when Brian Rowe was sent off for retaliation.

“It was just the start we needed, wasn’t it,” joked Chandler.

“Conceding a penalty must have been the icing on the cake for Lowestoft. Talk about gifting them the first half!

“Their fans might have been singing about going to Wembley, but I don’t think it’s all over by any means.”

Richard Woodrow rocked the Bay almost straight from the kick-off when he slipped the ball past Terry Burke, but it was Rowe’s dismissal which was the turning point.

Despite their numerical disadvantage, Chandler’s men held out until 10 minutes before the interval when two goals proved decisive.

The first was a penalty awarded when Burke fouled in the area and Woodrow scored his second goal of the afternoon.

Burke was involved again as a cross eluded him and Richard Stock headed in.

The Bay turned in a decent second-half display, but couldn’t produce a goal and the sucker punch came in stoppage time when Jamie Godbold fired in.

But Chandler declared: “We’ve proved on our day we can score five or six goals against any side.

“If we get a couple of early goals we’ll have a chance.

“Had we been beaten by a good team I would have held my hands up, but on the day we were just poor.”

Whitley secretary Derek Breakwell echoed the sentiments of his manager.

He said: “That was our worst 45 minutes for a very long time, but we’ve got the players to turn it around.”

WHITLEY BAY: Burke, Taylor, Douglas (Woodhouse), Rowe, Coulson, Dugdale (Graham), Moore, Robson, Kerr, Chow, Robinson (Minto). MoM: Taylor