Due to other commitments I didn’t plan to see a football match this weekend, so I took the opportunity to take in a local game between Worsop Town and South Shields.
I wrote about Worksop Town back in 2020 when the reputed fourth oldest club in England were in jeopardy of going out of business.
5 years on and they survived, and have since gained two promotions and now play in the National League North.
Their opponents South Shields have gained one promotion in the same time but have established themselves at the higher level over the last two seasons. They have been up for sale for over a year as offers are being progressed.
I have written before about the history and ground at Worksop so I will not repeat myself.
It was a cold night at 3 degrees, and falling, as the teams walked out.
Worksop Town FC 0 South Shields FC 3
Tuesday 25th November 2025, National League North.
18th v 1st, Tigers v The Mariners
Worksop, shirts – yellow and black vertical stripes on the front and all yellow backs, black shorts, goalkeeper in all green.
South Shields, white shirts, claret shorts, goalkeeper in all light blue.
South Shields started with crispy through passing that Worksop countered with a good offside trap. Although South Shields looked stronger and more accurate with passing and slow organised play out from the back, Worksop grew into the game and had numerous chances. However they didn’t have the cutting edge to score.
With half time fast approaching another of the away sides long balls was met by Lemar Gordon who just beat the Worksop keeper and the ball looped towards and into the goal, from his header, despite a last minute lunge from a defender.
The goalkeeper needed attention for a few minutes after the clash but the goal stood.
The Tigers left the field rueing their missed chances.
The Mariners pressed forward immediately from the restart and the fast and tricky Gordon forced a corner on the left which he took himself after 50 minutes.The corner didn’t rise more than 6 feet off the ground but somehow found Will Jenkins in the middle of the goal, all alone, to flick it in, to double the score.
Five minutes, and it was all over when Will Jenkins, again, received the ball on the left side of the goal area, jinked one way and another, before scoring his second, after his shot took a wicked deflection off the back of a defender, wrong footing the goalkeeper.
The away team controlled the game from that moment to the end, with one play, mainly across the back line and the goalkeeper, being a 22 pass move.
Aaron Martin’s header for Worksop, did clip the outside of the right post, and they looked livelier when they made three substitutions but South Shields cruised to victory, a truely top of the league performance.
Worksop dropped to one off the relegation zone and have a hard task to stay up to consolidate their place in this higher league. whereas South Shields maintained their two point advantage at the top.
The chips were again disapointing, they were warm, slightly crispy, chewy, but tasteless, gaining a score of only 54. I did wonder wether I have reached peak chips.
N.B. How do fans from the North East do it, in the second half I stood next to some South Shields fans, one of whom only had a shirt on, it was zero degrees!
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