Stalybridge Celtic 1 Ilkeston Town 0

Date published: 07 December 2009

It was finally back to league action at Bower Fold, the first league match there since Redditch visited at the start of October.

Ilkeston were the visitors hoping to take advantage of Stalybridge's rusty home form but the visitors went down to a goal worthy of winning any match.

Joe O’Neill had an effort charged down and the rebound came to Keith Briggs, who watched it fall and hit it absolutely perfectly, giving Dan Lowson in the visiting nets not a chance.

After that the game became scrappy, with Ilkeston shading the chances, requiring a fine reaction save from Dave Carnell after a free kick. Carnell denied Gary Ricketts a with a flying save from a close range header, and Ricketts put an effort from the resulting corner over the bar.

Celtic’s best chances of the half fell first to Dave Hankin who cut inside his man and fired narrowly over and to Matty Barlow who saw his header from a Graeme Law cross spin narrowly pas the upright.

After the interval Steve Woods went close as Ilkeston failed to clear a corner, and O’Neill fired into Lowson’s arms under pressure, but again, it was the visitors who were piling the pressure on, with a stalwart Celtic defence keeping them at bay.

Only Sam Duncum and substitute Amari Morgan-Smith got past the Celtic defence, and both times, Carnell was up to the task, and kept a clean sheet on his home league debut.

Celtic had fallen away with the lack of league games, but that win puts them back in prime position.

A win against Gloucester on Tuesday night would put the club into the play-off spots, within striking distance of the top three with plenty of games in hand.