On a cold Monday night in front of a bumper crowd of 744 Heanor Town took to the field to play a Derby side made up of mainly Under 21 squad players.
In early exchanges it was difficult for either side to stamp their authority; short direct passing football didn’t seem to be on the agenda for either side as they struggled to keep the ball.
It was Nathan Benger who hit an audacious shot at goal from 30 yards in the 17th minute that flew into the top corner the break the deadlock, giving Heanor the lead. Heanor had earlier seen a goal denied after a linesman’s flag had gone up.
Callum Ball, Derby’s forward who has seen service at both Coventry and more recently Torquay on loan, fired home from a tight angle just seven minutes later to level the score.
Derby’s goalkeeper, Mats Morch, did have to produce a fine double save shortly before the break, the first shot from Nick Hall; the second from Benger.

The Heanor side for the second half consisted of mainly fringe, reserve and under 19 players and for the majority of the half they competed as well as the senior player had done in the first half.
The Rams did have a spell of dominance from the restart that eventually culminated with Derby taking the lead – in the 59th minute midfielder Andy Dales skipped through Heanor challenges to smash the ball into the roof of the net.
Just a couple of minutes later when Callum Guy was felled inside the penalty area, Callum Ball stepped up to take the spot kick, rolling the ball into the net with confidence.
Heanor never looked like giving up, although precautions for Wednesday nights match at home to Brighouse were being taken by making a number of substitutions.
In the 73rd minute Heanor scored their second spectacular goal of the night, Stevenson managing to send his corner kick straight into the back of the net. With the score at 3-2 it added a little bit of respectability to the score line.
Goalkeeper Ross Cherry did make a fantastic point blank spot from Dawkins, great work by Zanzala fed Dawkins who had found himself one on one, his low shot was saved when it looked to all like Derby were about to score a fourth goal.

Derby managed to see the game out in front of their manager, Steve McLaren, and midfielder Will Hughes who were both humble enough to sign every autograph and smile for every photo they were asked for.

Heanor starting XI: Frost, Stevenson, Shaw, Moran, Peel, Blake, Grantham, Hall, Benger, Wallace, Debrouwer.

Next match: Heanor Town FC v Brighouse FC, Wednesday 16th October 2013 7.45pm