Text at top (next game etc)

Next Game: Darlington Away In The League On Saturday 23rd November At 3.00pm

Tuesday, March 19, 2013

Bulls On The Road To Hartlepool


The Bulls have left for Hartlepool after better than expected overnight weather.

Mostly light rain has been experienced in the area overnight, with tonight's predicted heavy snow now down to a heavy rain shower at 6pm, reducing to light rain at 9pm.

While the Bulls will come into the game knowing they have a four day break to the next match, Gateshead boss Anth Smith has to prepare for another game - against Newport at York - on Thursday night. he told local paper The Journal that he was having to shuffle his squad:

“You’ve got to work out a way to cope with it, which means rotating the squad and that’s not going to be easy with our size of squad. I don’t think I’ve ever known such a schedule. This is a new one on me.

“We have to look at all the matches and take a sensible approach. We will try to win every game, of course. We will need to swap players about, but you don’t want to mess with a team that is playing well and we have been doing that over the past few weeks.

“On Saturday I brought off James Brown and Liam Henderson because they had run themselves into the ground and replaced them with Ben Everson and Liam Hatch as they have done well before. I hoped they would take the team forward, then we go on and lose 3-2 in the last ten minutes, so it’s a balancing act. 

"You never want to unsettle a winning team apart from one of two changes, but four games in seven days means that guys who haven’t been playing so much recently will come into the team. It is what it is and we just need to get on with it.

"Four games in seven days is far from ideal, but what can we do?”


Smith will be without defender Carl Magnay for the game. The former Chelsea trainee damaged ankle ligaments in last Wednesday's match at Telford. He joins winger Peter Bore, striker Nathan Fisher, and defender Lewis Galpin on the sidelines.