Bangor City 3 – 0 The New Saints
Friday, 14th April
A fantastic team performance sees City beat champions TNS 3-0 at the Bangor University Stadium.
Before a ball was kicked on Good Friday, it was Bangor City who were 10/1 underdogs going into the game against The New Saints who have already been crowned champions of the Welsh Premier League.
Yet from the first whistle the homeside, resurgent under Player-Manager Gary Taylor-Fletcher, looked the most likely.
The first real chance of the game came for Henry Jones who looked fearless on the left wing, cutting his way through the best defence in the league to curl a lovely shot towards the top corner – but it was just wide.
Jones though was hungry for a goal and continued to threaten for City from the left, often linking up with Taylor-Fletcher or frontman Daniel Nardiello.
TNS’ best chance came towards the beginning of the match after some nice play on the break left Greg Draper through on goal but luckily for the Citizens his shot went just wide.
Since veteran Taylor-Fletcher signed for Bangor earlier this year, he’s brought some experience and unpredictability to the team. In his second game as manager his team looked calm and collected up against the league’s best side as they put together pass after tidy pass.
The 543 that made the trip to the Bangor City Stadium on a rainy Good Friday were on their feet halfway through the half when a scramble in the box gave Nardiello a great chance of putting his team in front only for Harrison to somehow keep it out and Allen to fire over the bar.
The striker had another great chance five minutes later as a mistake from Harrison allowed him to skip past the keeper but he couldn’t hit the back of the net from an impossibly tight angle.
Bangor’s real breakthrough however came just before half time when Nardiello, through on goal, was tugged back by Mihai Leca (who hadn’t been on the pitch for long) and the referee showed him a straight red.
It was a dominating display in front of the City faithful but the first half came to a close at 0-0.
With TNS down to 10 men the champions were there for the taking and Bangor came back out for the second half in that mindset.
Less than 10 minutes in to the second half and Bangor finally took a much deserved lead through Henry Jones who headed in a Dean Rittenburg cross.
And then fifteen minutes later, Daniel Nardiello got the home team’s second. He received the ball in the box from Taylor-Fletcher and showed great strength to hold off the defenders before turning and slotting home out of Harrison’s reach.
2-0 up against a TNS team who had only lost twice this season, Bangor were clearly enjoying their football and so were their fans, with a group of youngsters singing a compilation of songs aimed at Taylor-Fletcher.
And the player-manager paid them back in added time as he rounded off the scoring from close range.
On a rainy afternoon where their bench wasn’t even full, Bangor City showed the league’s big boys just what they can do and finally ended TNS’ 17 game winning streak over the Gwynedd outfit.
