Kelly goes with a bang

Photo: Pictures by ALAN HOWARTH

ON THE CHARGE: David Dunn - now caretaker boss - makes a run down the flank.

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Athletic 1, Peterborough 5

THIS is how the managerial career of Darren Kelly ended, not with a whimper but with a bang.

All the talk before this game was that a defeat would certainly bring down the curtain on the briefest of stints in charge for the man from Derry.

It was virtually an open secret within the club.

Take the photo shoot this week. Two different versions of the squad picture were taken: one of the team with the chairman Simon Corney and another of the players posing with Kelly and his coaching staff.

Guess which one will get used now?

With a board meeting also held on the morning of the shoot, adding the mounting evidence together didn’t require the detective skills of Hercule Poirot.

Still, even given successive defeats and with the rookie manager’s job on the line, nobody turning up for this fixture can have expected such an abject capitulation as this to see Kelly off.

The team, lacking coherence and energy and any semblance of defensive rigour, was steamed through by a rampant Peterborough outfit.

At times it was embarrassing. It was certainly an awful lot less than Kelly – whatever anyone’s opinion of a still baffling appointment – deserved as a send-off.

Athletic’s muddled thinking was evident after only nine minutes, when Joel Coleman emerged to try to shepherd a ball out of play for a throw which didn’t have sufficient pace. Peterborough recovered possession but couldn’t capitalise.

Six minutes later, Posh caretaker boss Grant McCann saw his side take the lead.

Lee Angol was playing his football last season with Boreham Wood in the Conference South, at the same level as Simonas Stankevicius who was loaned out to Nuneaton last term. The respective goals netted last term: 25 to none.

The contrast between the strikers could hardly have been sharper on the day. Angol’s finish was not the neatest as he tapped home inside the six-yard box from a low centre by strike partner Souleymane Coulibaly.

But his piercing runs and constant threat, on debut for a club who have the happy knack of unearthing gems, was far too much for Athletic’s back line to cope with.

For the second goal on 38 minutes, Connor Brown was robbed of the ball by Angol and his cut-back was side-footed across Coleman very neatly by the diminutive but dominant midfield figure of Erhun Oztumer.

Joseph Mills collided with his own player James Wilson two minutes before the interval, summing up Athletic’s day and allowing Jermaine Anderson a run on goal which he wastefully ended with a shot into the side netting.

The home team at least came out carrying some fight at the start of the second half.

Carl Winchester struck a shot which cannoned back off the far post and a minute after that, Murphy had the first goal of his to-date disappointing Athletic career.

Taking on a Dunn pass, his first touch was neat and his second, with his left foot, saw minimal backlift followed by a clean strike past a stranded Alnwick.

Hopefully, it is the start of better things to come from the ex-Dagenham player who was one of few lively figures in a bedraggled Athletic line-up.

Stankevicius shot over the top when he may have done better but in a wide-open game, Athletic were severely vulnerable.

Twice in the space of three minutes Peterborough embellished their lead.

Again, individual errors were to blame; first, Eoghan O’Connell lost the ball to Anderson and his slid pass down the side of the centre-backs enabled Coulibaly to confidently roll the ball home.

Next, Winchester was strolled around by Marcus Maddison from a short corner to leave Coulibaly with the simple task of nodding home from close range.

It was far, far too easy.

Angol wasted a chance to net another when shinning the ball into Coleman's lap after 67 minutes and soon after that, Dom Poleon went close with an angled drive which Alnwick did well to tip onto a post.

Former Wycombe and Luton man Angol had his second on 78 minutes, controlling Michael Smith’s cross from within an obscene amount of space in the box and stroking home.

“We want Kelly out,” rang the cry from the stands. Less than two hours later, the crowd got their wish. Over to you, David Dunn.