Spennymoor Town and Darlington drew their fourth successive meeting, but there was no lack of talking points after a game which saw red cards shown to two managers.
Bernard Morley, Moors joint-manager, and Quakers chief Alun Armstrong both saw red following a mass fracas in injury time.
It was sparked after Darlington’s Jack Lambert, attempting to keep the ball in play close to the home dugout, was tripped by Spennymoor goalkeeper coach Martin Campbell who was outside of the technical area.
Armstrong was furious and remonstrated on the pitch with referee James Westgate, Morley then became involved and soon all players and officials from both sides were embroiled in a lengthy melee.
“I got the red card because I entered the field of play, but if the referee sends me off for that, then he’s got to send virtually everybody else off,” said Armstrong.
“I’m protecting my player, who gets kicked off their assistant manager, manager or whoever it is. He’s out of their technical area, and has got no right to touch that ball. He could have seriously hurt Jack, because the innocuous ones can be like that.”
The game had not been a bad-tempered affair, Westgate handing out one yellow card to Spennymoor’s former Darlington midfielder Joe Wheatley for a characteristically poor challenge, and both sides came close to winning it.
Moors had the better of the early chances. Jude Oyibo, who scored the winner at Leamington in Moors’ previous game, put an early effort over the Darlington crossbar, but prompted by the forward runs of the tricky Lambert, Quakers had a spell of three chances in five minutes.
Mark Beck headed into the side netting from ten yards, he also had a downward header saved by Max Metcalfe, and Lambert sidefooted inches wide from the edge of the box.
In the second half, Tommy Taylor pulled off a good one-handed save from Rob Ramshaw before Moors took the lead just before the hour.
But the deadlock was broken on the hour when Glen Taylor hit a shot against the post, and Jordan Thewlis followed up to score.
They nearly got another with a Taylor header, before Darlington equalised on 70 minutes.
Lambert found Beck just inside the Moors area, and even though Metcalfe blocked Beck’s first effort, the Darlington striker kept his balance well to guide the ball home into the bottom corner.
Scott Duxbury forced Taylor into a fingertip save, after which the referee stopped play to speak to club officials following an alleged racist remark aimed at Darlington’s ex-Spennymoor player Adriano Moke from behind the goal occupied by home fans.
After the game, Moors general manager Ian Geldard said: “We will investigate and if found, lifetime ban from Brewery Field.”
In the closing stages Quakers took control. Marcus Maddison twice put in dangerous crosses that were cleared, and Lambert put sub Jacob Hazel through, but he fired narrowly over the top.
Armstrong said: “I thought we deserved a draw, and the game could have gone either way. I thought we created the better chances, especially in the last 15 minutes.
“Jacob Hazel had a great chance near the end, and we could have had a penalty for a foul on Becky (Mark Beck) just before half time. It was a decent point away from home.
“The goal was why we’ve brought players like Mark into the club, to grab those goals for us. He didn’t score last week against Banbury, but he came up trumps on Saturday. He could have had a couple more.
“I couldn’t fault the effort and commitment of the lads. The disappointing thing was their goal, we switched off a little bit and the midfield didn’t come out quick enough. Apart from that, the midfield was absolutely fine. Some of our play was decent and we moved the ball really well. We were the fittest team at the end of the game.”
Moors are unbeaten in five league games. Morley, who didn’t comment on the stoppage-time incident, said: “I thought the game was quite even. I thought our players deserved to win the game, but could quite easily have lost it late on.
“I thought we controlled the first 25 minutes, but we allowed Darlington back into the game. Our ball in the final third killed us again. Glen Taylor won 90 percent of his headers and we had some good half-chances. We stayed positive, got our noses in front, but conceded far too early.
“These are the games we’ve got to win, because we created enough chances. We conceded a really soft goal in the second half, especially when we’ve been so defensively strong in the first four games. Darlington had a right go late on, and ultimately we’re disappointed. That’s three home games and three draws for us.”
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