THE GREAT ESCAPE STILL ON AS MILLERS MAKE IT 3 WINS ON THE BOUNCE!
Carlton Town’s fans travelled in numbers to Cleethorpes and cheered the Millers on to their third away win in the last 12 days with another fine performance on the road.
It was not to many years ago that Carlton were getting gates of just 70/80 people, but for this fixture, they took around 50/60 away fans and made a lot of noise to help get the Millers over the line. The club coach was pretty much full and others made the 2 hour journey by car.
Carlton had the slightly better of a free flowing first half and when the impressive Niall Davey was upended in the box, up stepped Alex Troke to slot home the penalty, his first goal since he returned to the club.
Carlton went into the break with the 1-0 lead, but Will Annan levelled things up at the start of the second half, before the inform Alex Howes restored Carlton’s lead with a delightfull floated effort, or was it a cross that deceived the keeper ? only Alex knows the answer to that one.
The game was flowing from end to end and Paul Walker punished Carlton converting a cross after Nat Watson had conceded a free kick towards the Corner flag.
Tommy and Mark made changes with an intention to go on and win the game and new signing Charlie Marzano was rewarded for his flair and endeavour when his effort was deflected past the unfortunate Cleethorpes keeper to give the Millers a 3-2 lead.
It was a lead the Millers were to hold onto with the only negative, a second yellow card for Nat Watson in the final minutes, who along with Howes had controlled the midfield for a significant part of the game. He will now miss at least one game, a setback the Millers could have done without and while his second yellow was probably deserved, his first was unlucky, after he caught the ball after it had gone out and come back into play. Unfortunately for Carlton the officials had missed that and despite many protests from those close by, the referee pointed out that you play to the whistle.
The atmosphere among the travelling fans was electric in the ground and the bar afterwards (pictured) and many left after their first visit to the ground impressed indeed at a fine non league set up with a great following, 401 were inside the stadium for this entertaining fixture.
So is the great escape on? well Carlton are certainly making a fantastic fist off it, particularly away from home, but another testing weeks await, Carlton travel to Ossett Town on Tuesday night before high flying Stockton visit Stoke Lane on Saturday, it may well be a situation that will look a little clearer after those two games or not as the case may be, but boring it’s not and an exciting end of the season awaits, we will see what it brings!
