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Barnet 2 Stockport County 1

Simon Smedley
30/ 4/2008

IT’S going to have to be the drama of the play-off route if County are to secure promotion to League One.

Cliff Akurang’s late winner for Barnet in this match, coupled with Hereford’s comfortable win at Brentford, meant that it was Graham Turner’s side who were celebrating hard on Saturday night.

Glorious sunshine greeted the two sides at Underhill, and while Bees boss Paul Fairclough was hampered by a clutch of injury problems, Hatters boss Jim Gannon made three tactical changes to his starting XI.

Michael Rose and Stephen Gleeson returned, while Jamie Smith reverted to his more familiar right-back role and Ryan Lowe started up front alongside Liam Dickinson.

The noise from the 1,000-plus travelling army was almost deafening as County kicked-off playing down the famous Underhill slope, and it was the visitors who created the first chance when Dominic Blizzard headed Tommy Rowe’s corner-kick some way over the crossbar.

After 11 minutes County were denied by the woodwork following a splendid move down the right.

Lowe crossed low to the near post, and Rowe nipped in before Barnet ‘keeper Lee Harrison but saw his shot bounce back out off the base of a post.

Jason Puncheon blazed woefully over for the hosts, but half-way through the first period County went mighty close again.

Dickinson played a sweet through-ball to Rowe, he crossed for Gleeson, but the Irish midfielder’s goal-bound shot was superbly blocked by Josh Wright.

Lowe got up well to glance a header narrowly wide, then on 35 minutes he turned provider for Dickinson who raced clear but was quickly thwarted by Harrison.

The Barnet match announcer incurred the wrath of the County fans five minutes before the break when he revealed that Hereford were two goals up, but Rowe almost rammed the words straight back down his throat when he flashed a fierce drive just past the post.

After such a promising first half, County were to fall behind just two minutes after the restart.

A questionable foul on Puncheon was awarded just outside the Hatters’ box, the Bees’ front-man got up to fire the kick into the wall, but the ball rebounded kindly back to him and a low shot was immediately fired right into the corner past John Ruddy’s lunging dive.

However, County quickly hit back through that special man Rowe.

After picking up Dickinson’s ball forward, the County wonder-kid held off Michael Leary before looping a superbly-measured chip over Harrison and into goal.

It was game right back on and Puncheon and Adam Birchall both went close for Barnet, but at the other end Hatters sub Adam Proudlock tried to make a rapid impact when he found an inch of space before scooping a shot wide.

Gleeson fluffed a great chance on 78 minutes when he fired straight at Harrison from 15 yards, and that miss was punished almost straight away when Akurang sprang superbly to ram in a header which means it’s now for the play-offs for Gannon’s boys.