Nick Sandamas sees Barnet beat Chesterfield

The main stand at The Hive Stadium, home of Barnet FC — The Hive (Credit – Katie Chan, CC BY-SA 4.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0, via Wikimedia Commons)

Nmamdi Ofoborh’s fine strike in the second half proved enough for the Bees to beat promotion rivals Chesterfield yesterday: a result which moves the black and amber closer to those coveted play off places.

Following Tuesday night’s fine win on the road against Accrington Stanley, one change was made to the starting line up with Dialling Jaiyesimi given the nod over Jack Howland (who dropped to the bench) in the midfield.

It was the Spireites who started the stronger with two sights of goal in the opening ten minutes.

First Liam Mandeville’s run and shot went into the side netting, then, minutes later, a right sided free kick from Mandeville found the head of Lee Bonis but he could only glide his header wide.

At the midway point of the half Dylan Duffy shot past the post as the Derbyshire outfit looked more likely to open the scoring.

The Bees didn’t really create anything until the closing moments of the first half, when a long Ryan Glover throw found Romany Crichlow who played it to Danny Collinge inside the area. His crisp turn and shot clipped the top of the bar, then with half time pending, keeper Ciaran Slicker hoisted a high ball over the top to the on-running Kabongo Tshimanga whose attempted run and shot drifted wide.

The first opportunity of the second half fell to Crichlow but, with his back to goal, he could only hoist his header over the bar.

Paul Cook made a triple change on the hour mark in an attempt to break the deadlock but, three minutes later, a moment of magic from Ofoborh on 65 minutes won the game for the home side.

Set up by Ben Winterburn, he played the ball to the number 28 who, standing on the edge of the area, produced a sweet turn before firing the ball over the diving keeper Zac Hemmings and into the top corner of the net.

The Spireites then had two quick attempts to level, both coming from sub Armando Dobra. His first effort was beaten away by Slicker, standing at his near post and, within 90 seconds, he produced a half volley which was cleared off the line.

The Bees saw out the rest of the game to take all three points and end their recent poor run over their opponents.

The ninth placed Bees will go into next Saturday’s game against seventh placed Salford City full of confidence having racked up two wins and two clean sheets in a row to put themselves right back in with a great chance for the play offs.

Team: Slicker, Collinge, Senior, Crichlow, Glover, Jaiyesimi (Hartigan 74) Ofoborh, Winterburn (Chinedu 88) Stead, Tshimanga (Hawkins 90+3), Kanu

Subs not used: Evans, Browne, Howland, Assombalonga

Attendance 2901 (887 away fans)

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