The Paul Carden era at Nantwich Town got underway on Saturday but, it was not the dream debut he would have wanted as Hyde United came away with a narrow 1-0 victory.
Edy Maiceo scored the game’s only goal with 20 minutes left when he hit a stunning free-kick into the top corner of Tom Booth’s goal. The goalkeeper, who is the brother of former Leek Town keeper Sam Booth, couldn’t do anything about it as it flew past him.
Nantwich should have had a goal themselves and, they thought they had scored just before half-time when referee James Lunn awarded the Dabbers a penalty when Ivan Urvantev was brought down in the area. Up stepped top scorer Dan Cockerline who hit a decent penalty, but his effort was pushed away for a corner by Dan Atherton. From that resulting corner, Cockerline found the back of the net as he headed past Atherton but, the goal was chalked off as the referee felt Cockerline had fouled Atherton as he went for the ball.
After Maiceo’s goal, Carden’s men threw everything at Hyde looking for the equaliser and they had several chances to pull level. Young Crewe loanee Connor Evans missed two decent chances while Atherton made a comfortable stop to deny Nantwich captain Troy Bourne a late goal.
The result keeps Nantwich in the bottom four and more importantly, they’re now five points off safety with eight games to go.
After the game, I caught up with the new Nantwich Town manager Paul Carden to discuss the game.
