BNFC start home form resurgence
Benoni Northerns Football Club’s (BNFC) first team coach, Flavio Mariuzzi’s, plan to turn around his team’s recent away misfortunes at home, got off to a good start when they hosted Kempton Park, at Northern Areas, on Saturday, May 17.
Kempton Park are at the bottom of the ELFA Super League Seniors Division One table, and BNFC were always expecting to get the three points from this encounter.
The Northerns team, however, were still reeling from a number of injuries and the absence of key players.
They started brightly though, and a 3-0 lead at halftime was testament to some strong attacking play from the players in the red jerseys.
Graham “Braveheart” Turnbull opened the scoring early on, when a Brogan Shrimpton cross was cleared and landed at the feet of the physical forward, who shot from outside the box to find the back of the net.
Michael Edwards bagged BNFC’s second goal of the first period, when he slotted a powerful strike past the Kempton Park goalkeeper.
He added to his tally towards the end of the half, when he volleyed home from a pinpoint Shrimpton cross, that came from the right side of the pitch, to put Northerns 3-0 up at the break.
Mariuzzi was pleased with the performance at this stage and was hoping his makeshift back four could hold onto the clean sheet in the second period.
A red card was handed to a Kempton player for punching, and Northerns capitalised on the number advantage when Shrimpton extended the Northerns lead to 4-0, with a screaming strike from an acute angle that was about 30m out.
Things seemed to be going swimmingly for Mariuzzi’s players, until Kempton Park managed to score twice, which included a very soft own goal that managed to squeeze past goalkeeper Daniel de Abreu.
Turnbull found his second of the encounter with a deft header, to give BNFC their fifth goal of the encounter and take the score line to 5-2.
Another defensive slip-up saw the second own goal of the match cross the Northerns goal line.
Commenting on the 5-3 win, Mariuzzi said: “I am pretty disappointed that we conceded the three goals, particularly the two own goals.
“I am very proud of the way that we attacked, though, and thought that we dominated most of the play; again, the guys showed that they are starting to play for each other.
“We want to show the other clubs that they will have to fight to come down to the North and take the three points from us.
“Hopefully it’s a turnaround for our season.
“We have had a lot of injuries and have probably half of our injured players back, so things are looking up.”
The team recently introduced the Cliffy Pike Man of the Match award and this was handed to Turnbull for a strong display.
- Meanwhile, the Northerns reserve team were on the back end of a 5-1 defeat against Kempton.
