Southport 1 v 1 Redditch United

Events after the game over-shadowed the previous ninety six minutes, in a match where Southport dropped out of the promotion spots, with Redditch ending with nine players on the pitch as tempers boiled over.

With Neil Prince failing a fitness test, and Neil Sorvel returning to Morecambe, Liam Blakeman was given a start, his first league start since the middle of January. Southport started brightly, with Tony Gray looking sharp, Neil Robinson looking dangerous in the box, and Mark Duffy looking for the break beyond the five-man defence the visitors started with.

Southport’s early dominance was rewarded as Michael Powell chipped the ball to Blakeman on the left wing, who got the ball back to Tony Gray just inside the box, striking his shot into the top right corner.

Redditch started to put a few good little moves together, and could have equalised as Scott Rickards saw his shot well taken by Drench, followed a few moments later by Danny Edwards 35 yard free-kick heading for the top right corner, only for Drench to push the ball away for a corner.

Mark Duffy took a nasty challenge and had to be replaced by Mark Houghton just after 50 minutes, with Liam Murray booked for the tackle on the far touch-line. With the visitors making a series of feisty challenges, which mainly went unpunished by the ineffective referee, United pulled level as James Johnson went down in the box, with Kev Lee pleading that he had not touched the substitute, with Liam Daly scoring from the penalty spot, firing low to his left, again Drench going the wrong way.

Towards the end of the match, the game threatened to boil over as Neil Robinson was clean through on goal, with tall defender Exodus Geohaghon catching the striker on the edge of the area, with Geohaghon being sent off, but Gray’s free-kick did little to worry Lewis in the goal. United were reduced to nine players deep into stoppage time as Lee Downes was sent off for his second bookable challenge. Right at the death, James Johnson made a harsh challenge on Paul Barrett on the half-way line, but rather than deal with the incident, the referee blew for full time. Upon this occured one of the most bizarre, disturbing and shocking reactions as a mass brawl took place on the pitch.