By John Baron
Error-strewn Farsley Celtic were thrashed 6-0 by a Scunthorpe United side intent on reigniting their promotion push.
Before the game manager Pav Singh spoke about the need to eradicate the individual errors which had seen The Celts slip to a 3-0 defeat at Hereford on Saturday.
Farsley were again left to rue mistakes throughout tonight’s encounter. at Scunthorpe, with the hosts scoring three goals either side of half time.
Despite a positive and confident start, the visitors found themselves two goals down within 16 minutes thanks to a couple of howlers from young goalkeeper Tom Wooster, who is on loan from Manchester United.
On 14 minutes a long throw evaded everyone in the box. With Wooster grasping thin air, Danny Whitehall nodded in from point blank range at the back post.
Two minutes later the home side doubled their lead when Callum Roberts’ shot from distance somehow slipped through Wooster’s hands and into the bottom corner.
It could have been worse for Wooster just five minutes later, when the rookie goalkeeper conceded a foul on the edge of his own box and fortunately received just a yellow card.
Farsley played some nice football at times in the first half. Greenfield was their biggest threat and his strike from range forced the Iron goalkeeper down to his left to palm it out for a corner.
Five minutes before the break and the home side had their third. Roberts was involved again before an eventual half volley from Denton inside the area found its way into the back of the net after ricocheting off of Sam Fishburn.
There was an opening for Tom Allan late in the half when he met a corner at the back post but he couldn’t keep his header down and Farsley went into the break at the Attis Arena three goals down – a scoreline that was a little harsh on the part-timers against their more illustrious opponents.
Scunthorpe continued to look threatening and added a fourth from the penalty spot when Whitehall was fouled by Sam Fielding. The penalty award looked soft, but the forward’s confident spot kick sent Wooster the wrong way.
Substitute Manny Mampala’s superb curling strike for Farsley rattled the post with just ten minutes left. It was the closest Farsley would come as Scunthorpe finished the stronger.
The home side then claimed their fifth and sixth goals in the final ten minutes as the full timers’ superiority showed. Farsley have now slipped to 16th in the National League North table.
It capped a heavy defeat on what was the Celts’ 25th consecutive game on the road, including pre-season, due to stalled work on installing a new 4G pitch at The Citadel.
The 39 travelling Farsley fans cheered on their time right until the final whistle – but will be hoping off-field issues with pitches, payments and a transfer embargo don’t further undermine the efforts of the players and management in the face of a challenging ‘away’ schedule.
Farsley are next in action on Saturday when Pav Singh’s side take on Darlington in a ‘home’ game to be played at the Tarmac Silverlands Stadium in Buxton.