Managerless Market Drayton Town have enjoyed three wins on the bounce – scoring an incredible 16 goals in the process.
On Tuesday night Town played their fifth match in 11 days, and needed the rub of the green against very dangerous opposition in Belper, plus two goals from David Howells, his first in three seasons with the club.
Howells broke his duck during a brief switch to the right with a somewhat speculative 32nd minute shot. But his second, on 63 minutes, was stroked home with the emphasis on accuracy after some excellent build-up play by Martyn Davies and defender Paul Bowyer, operating as a fill-in striker.
Belper, who could have been out of sight by that stage, belatedly got off the mark with sub Anthony Wilson heading home a 73rd minute corner to trigger a lively closing session in which the visitors often threatened to get an equaliser.
Coming after an extraordinary 4-3 league win at Stamford on Saturday and a 10-1 Shropshire Challenge Cup spree over brave but outclassed St Martins the previous Thursday, it left Town just 12 points short of their season’s safety target of 40 points.
“It’s hard to believe,” admitted coach Mick Murphy afterwards. “I have to keep pinching myself to be convinced this is all happening.
“We have lost two managers and almost half a dozen players this season - but whatever team we turn out, they battle away to come up with the goods. It’s magical, superb.
It also showed in overly fussy referee Mr A M Garratt’s notebook on Tuesday. He yellow carded five Town players - Pryce, Martyn Davies, Paul McMullen, Bowyer and sub Gareth Gates, who saw it turn to red after the game when he told Mr Garratt what he thought of his yellow card decision.
By that yardstick, Mr Garratt would have sent half the fans off too - few saw it the way he did in a hard fought but invariably fair encounter.
Why he ruled out Bowyer’s superb headed second half goal and later booked Belper’s Tom Naylor for a foul on Davies in the penalty area and then refused to give a penalty mystified even the Belper fans.
Unfortunately, the end result, as far as the fair-play tally stacks up, does not make good reading for it meant that Town have now finished their last three league games with only 10 players.
McCormick was ordered off without touching the ball at Spalding on Saturday for a disastrous first tackle on goalkeeper Steve Norris.
He’d gone on with the score three-apiece and nine minutes to go - but just to complete the drama, Martyn Davies got a last minute winner from the penalty spot after man-of-the-match Nicky Porter had been fouled
Town had battled back from being 2-0 down, their four hour long coach journey taking its toll as its toll as second-from-bottom Spalding struck through their lively centre-forward, Simon Mowbray in the 16th and 26th minutes, the latter a bit of a gift from a mix-up between keeper Pryce and McMullen.
Porter pulled one back three minutes before the break with a power drive 40 yarder and his ability to run at the opposition brought him an equaliser on 57 minutes, stroked past Norris after the keeper had seen his defence evaporate.
Spalding’s third, just three minutes later, was a travesty, the officials clearly failing to stop play as the ball went at least a yard out of play but Action Man Jason Francis headed a great far post equaliser from Porter’s cunning corner just three minutes later.
“From there, we had them,” said Murphy. “They were defending desperately even after Steve McCormick was sent off - nursing, I might add, a black eye from one of their defenders.
“Martyn Davies took the penalty superbly, sending his man the wrong way.”
That gave Town their 14th goal in three days, Bowyer (3), Francis (2), Anslow, Davies, Gates, Porter and Ken Vickers’s own goal demolishing St Martins who were outmatched after a plucky start in which Chris Bishop scored a 31st minute equaliser.
If ever there was an argument for the Shropshire FA to rethink their county cups line-up, this was it. Town deserve a place in the senior competition; a plucky bunch of lads like St Martins don’t deserve defeats like this.