Bulls serve up vintage display to celebrate promotion

Ben Smith: scored first goal

The Bulls produced a vintage performance in front of their largest home league gate this season. In a carnival atmosphere they swept Grimsby aside with the kind of quality flowing football which has been a feature of their play all season.

A number of changes were made from those who started the Brentford game. Skipper Karl Broadhurst and Richard Rose dropped to the bench allowing Robbie Threlfall and Lee Collins to feature in defence. Johnson, Taylor and Guinan all started the game replacing Igoe, Easton and Hooper. The Edgar Street crowd will have been particularly disappointed that injury forced keeper Wayne Brown – who contributed so much to this season’s success - to sit this game out. He was replaced by loanee Ryan Esson.

This was a game that started quietly but as it wore on the Bulls increased the tempo and secured a real grip on proceedings. Although the Bulls enjoyed more possession in the opening exchanges they only really seriously threatened the Grimsby goal in the seventeenth minute when Simon Johnson’s powerful run from the halfway line saw the on- loan striker shoot just wide.

It was the visitors who came closest to taking the lead in the twenty third minute when Danny Boshell smashed a ferocious left footed drive from the edge of the penalty area which Esson was equal to as he dived low to his right to turn the ball away superbly for a corner.

Toumani Diagouraga went close seven minutes later. After a slick exchange of passes with Guinan his left footed drive went just wide. The atmosphere at Edgar Street turned into a carnival in the thirty-fifth minute when the Bulls took the lead. Another flowing Bulls’ move saw Kris Taylor cleverly playing Ben Smith into space inside the penalty area. Smith’s flick gave Mariners’ keeper Phil Barnes no chance.

It was the Bulls who presented Grimsby with their best chance of the game just a minute later. Diagouraga played an uncharacteristically sloppy back pass into the path of Danny North. The Grimsby striker looked certain to equalise but Esson was equal to his effort, keeping it out with his legs.

The Bulls doubled their lead three minutes before the interval. Taylor was again provider with his pass clipping a Grimsby defender and falling kindly into the path of Theo Robinson inside the penalty area. The young striker slipped his shot to Barnes’ left before gleefully celebrating his third goal in three games.

There was still time for Robinson to go close again. This time he drilled just wide of the post after exhilarating exchanges of passing between Taylor and Guinan.

Robinson scores 2nd goal

In the second period – and with Esson a virtual spectator – the Bulls, kicking towards a packed Meadow End, took complete control of the game. They looked full of goals and that they failed to add to their two first half strikes owed much to some gritty last-ditch Grimsby defending.

A superb run to and then along the goal line by Kris Taylor – at the heart of everything that was good about the Bulls’ performance – resulted in his cross being hammered just over the bar by Beckwith. Soon afterwards Diagouraga dispossessed Bolland to feed Guinan into the penalty area. Back to his very best after injury Guinan richly deserved a goal but he drove wide when very well placed.

The striker went close again when he headed just over from a Taylor free kick. A minute after that Dean Beckwith went just as close with a header from another Taylor free kick.

The Bulls came closest to adding to their lead in the seventy-third minute when Johnson played Robinson into space on the left side of the penalty area. Barnes somehow beat out his left-footed drive and when Robinson headed the rebound back across goal Taylor’s flick was cleared off the line by Tom Newey.

Diagouraga went close after an excellent exchange of passes with Trevor Benjamin who had replaced Guinan. Threlfall sent a rasping free kick just wide from just outside the area.

In the dying moments Robinson and Benjamin both had shots charged down from close range. This was the fifth clean sheet in the last six games and in the second period Esson was only troubled once – and that when he stretched sharply to grasp an overhit header back to him from Dean Beckwith.

During the latter stages of the game Graham Turner introduced substitutes Benjamin, Broadhurst and McCombe . They replaced, respectively, Guinan, McClenehan and Beckwith who left the field of play to rousing ovations. With the final whistle the celebrations really began with the Bulls’ squad completing a lap of honour to an ecstatic home crowd.

That the Bulls were able to round of this superb season, in front of so many home supporters, with football which for much of the game was of the highest quality, was a quite magnificent achievement. League One football next season is a mouth-watering prospect – especially if home support can be as large and enthusiastic as this.

Players perform a lap of honour

Hereford United: Esson, McClenahan (Broadhurst 79), Beckwith (McCombe 84), Collins, Threlfall, Johnson, Smith, Diagouraga, Taylor, Guinan (Benjamin 64), Robinson.

Subs Not Used: Rose, Gwynne.

Grimsby Town: Barnes, Clarke, Bennett, Atkinson, Newey, Till (Taylor 57), Bolland, Boshell, Hegarty, Jarman (Butler 46), North (Bird 46).

Subs Not Used: Montgomery, Bore.

Booked: Hegarty.

Attendance: 6,020