Corby Town 4-0 Coventry Sphinx
Stuart Guest
After consecutive wins in the Pitching In Northern Premier League Midlands Division, Coventry Sphinx suffered their first defeat of 2025 against promotion-chasing Corby Town at Steel Park.
The 4-0 scoreline flattered the home team but the clinical finishing of top scorer Fletcher Toll gave them an emphatic win and, ultimately, three deserved points as they look to secure a play-off place with Step Three in their sights.
Sphinx’s joint managers John Woodward and Shaun Thomas named an unchanged side again, with the same eleven starting for the third time.
Goalkeeper Charlie Woods played behind a back three of Jamie Draper, Louis Guest and Kyle Burke, with Joe Pursey and Jordan Hayward in the wing back positions either side of Jack Downes and captain Callum Woodward in midfield.
Alex Lock and Kyle Carey flanked Harry Wakefield up front, backed up by Roan Newey and Luke Shearer on Sphinx’s strongest substitutes’ bench of the season.
The visitors made a strong start. In the fifth minute, a throw-in opened up an opportunity for Carey but Sphinx’s top scorer’s shot went over the top and Corby goalkeeper Ross Durrant wasn’t troubled.
It wasn’t long before the afternoon started to go wrong. Corby were awarded a penalty for a foul by Guest as early as the seventh minute and Toll claimed his first goal of the day by firing his penalty kick down the middle to make it 1-0.
Toll went close again after quarter of an hour but Woods was equal to his speculative driven volley on target.
The game was still quite closely matched. Woodward’s excellent free kick delivery was headed over by Guest with the score at 1-0 but the game was taken away from Sphinx by Toll’s second goal in the middle of the first half.
Woods appeared to be fouled while looking to grab a cross from a deep position – not for the first time in the match, a fact of which the referee was fully aware – and Toll tapped in the loose ball in the aftermath.
Corby were 3-0 up by the time half an hour had been played. Sphinx failed to clear a corner and the ball was forced in via a deflection by Tendai Daire.
The result was beyond Sphinx by half time but there was little in the way of attacking threat at either end beyond the trio of Corby goals. The game was ill-tempered and occasionally dirty but only Corby managed to create and then take meaningful chances in the first half.
Sphinx produced an improved performance after the break but were knocked back by the denial of a clear penalty when Hayward was fouled ten minutes into the second half. Draper had to act quickly to make a block to thwart a certain goal at the other end a minute later.
Guest and Carey both found themselves in the book in the space of three minutes around the hour mark, by which time the referee was more interested in managing the Sphinx players than refereeing a growing collection of unpunished fouls.
The visitors had brought Newey into the fray early in the half and turned to the bench again. Woodward and Thomas brought Shearer, Finlay Shorrock, Patrick Zito and Iddriss Fuseini on in quick succession and Sphinx started to have their say in the game again.
With 20 minutes remaining, Hayward cut in from his new position on the right and saw his left-footed shot deflected wide for a rare Sphinx corner.
But Corby were always the more dangerous team and, after a shot just over the angle in the 71st minute, they added number four.
The Steelmen didn’t need a helping hand from the away team but they got it anyway. Toll completed his hat-trick with the simple task of rolling the ball into the empty net after an awful mix-up at the back.
Sphinx made Durrant work twice late in the game, a welcome but futile exercise at the end of a chastening defeat.
Wakefield laid the ball out to Shorrock on the left and the substitute’s superb first-time cross was met by Newey. Durrant made a diving save to keep out the teenager’s header with quarter of an hour remaining.
Five minutes later it was Hayward cutting in again. His shot was deflected once more but this time was heading in before a fine Durrant save to keep it out of the bottom corner.
The contest was long over by the time the game fizzled out in the last five minutes. Corby had lots of the ball late on and Zito had to clear off the line to limit them to four goals.
Despite a disappointing result in Northamptonshire, Sphinx can take encouragement from some parts of their game as they prepare to return over the border to take on AFC Rushden & Diamonds on Tuesday evening.
Durrant had to make a couple of good saves in the second half and Sphinx matched Corby for spells of the match at Steel Park.
After the trip to Hayden Road, the boys in sky blue and white face a fourth consecutive away fixture when they visit Boldmere St Michaels on Saturday 25th January. After that, it’s time for the Diamonds to come to Coventry for the reverse fixture at the Sphinx Industrial Supplies Arena on Saturday 1st February.
Sphinx team
Woods, Draper, Hayward, Downes (Fuseini), Guest (Zito), Burke, Pursey (Shorrock), Woodward, Wakefield, Carey (Shearer), Lock (Newey)