Newport hit the road again this Tuesday night as we head to the Midlands to take on Notts County. In this week’s From the Archive, we look at our last trip to Meadow Lane, a dominant 4-1 win in 2019.
Notts County are currently battling it out at the top of League Two, but things were not so rosy for the hosts on our last trip to Nottingham. In February 2019, the club found itself rooted to the bottom of the League Two table, facing the possibility of relegation from the Football League for the first time in its history. A scrappy 1-0 win against local rivals Mansfield Town the week before had injected some hope into the fanbase, but they were brought crashing back down to earth when a rampant Newport side turned up.
It didn’t take long for the goals to start. Fraser Franks took advantage of a mix-up in the Notts County area to put us a goal to the good inside nine minutes. Kane Hemmings grabbed an equaliser for the home side within a minute when Joe Day parried a long-range shot into his path.
That was as good as it would get for Notts, though, with Jamille Matt heading us into the lead in the 15th minute before doubling his count for the night in the 33rd minute with an impressive overhead kick.
Whatever the Notts County manager said at halftime clearly didn’t have the desired effect, with Jamille Matt turning provider in the 47th minute, playing in an inch-perfect cross which was headed home by Padraig Amond.
With a three-goal advantage, County controlled large portions of the play for the rest of the second half, comfortably seeing out our highest-scoring away game and win of the season.