Despite being second best for parts of the afternoon, Bishops staged a late comeback to salvage a valuable point at home to Newton Aycliffe in front of a bumper 738 bank holiday attendance, reports Gavin Hadden.
Bishops lined up missing their first-choice defensive pairing of Aaron Brown and Andrew May, so Fielding dropped back to partner Walker at the heart of the defence.
The early indications were that the Two Blues were out to avenge Saturday’s disappointing result at Carlton and after eleven minutes, new signing Dean Briggs was gifted the ball and made no mistake passing into the empty net from the edge of the box.
Local lad Dean Thexton appeared as a first-half substitute for Aycliffe and his impressive holdup play appeared to give the away side some impetus, leading to a near miss when Ryan Catterick deflected a shot from Adamson a fraction the wrong side of the post.
As Bishops looked to close out the half with a slender lead, Adamson burst through on goal and Catterick was adjudged to have tripped the Aycliffe man resulting in a penalty which Petitjean slammed in.
The early moments after the break looked promising for the Bishops with good work down the left by Haase seeing the full backs cross deflected and spinning onto the top of the crossbar. Bartliff then fired over from the edge of the box.
However, on 54 minutes, Aycliffe forged ahead when a back post header was nodded in by Petitjean, Ferguson the provider with a whipped-in corner kick.
After Holdsworth went close, Aycliffe countered and struck the post on the hour mark.
Bishops looked to go long much more frequently but Matty Tymon and Louis Johnson were well marshalled by the Aycliffe defence leading to Jerome Greaves being brought on to bolster the forward line.
The increased height up top finally paid off on 88 minutes when Johnson chipped the ball into the middle and it somehow broke for Dale Milburn to blast home through a crowd of players.
Five minutes of injury time was flagged up and the Bishops’ final attack saw Tymon with space to run towards goal, but the burly forward chose to look for a pass and the ball was cut out by a relieved Aycliffe defender.
The point was welcomed at full-time as it did look like the away side would be returning to Moor Lane with all three points for large parts of the second half.
The point sees Bishops up to 15th in a tight mid-table.
Next up for the Two Blues is a trip to Brighouse this weekend before hosting Nantwich Town the following weekend in the First Qualifying Round of the FA Trophy.
Then it’s back to league duty on 14 September, when Bridlington Town will be the visitors to Heritage Park.
Bishop Auckland's local community newspaper.
