Stockton Town secured second place in the Northern Premier League East Division with a hard-fought point against Grimsby Borough. 

A header from Dale Mulligan wrote off an early goal from Thomas Hipwell to earn the Anchors a point, in what was an action-packed 90 minutes of football on a wonderful afternoon in Teesside.

Two changes to the team from Monday’s victory at Consett saw Matty Tymon and Dale Mulligan return in place of Nathan Mulligan and Mikey Roberts. Adam Nicholson returned to the bench as he finishes his recovery from an injury picked up back in February against Dunston. 

Within the first ten minutes, both sides had some good chances to their name. Grimsby’s Jack Debnam found space on the edge of the box and his effort was well blocked by Tom Coulthard as the ball looked to be heading into the net.

However Grimsby Borough took the lead from the following corner when an in-swinger from the left found full-back Thomas Hipwell in the box who powered his header past Callum Roberts.

It didn’t take long for the Anchors to respond, when in the 17th minute, a corner into the danger area from Cameron Painter was met by the head of Dale Mulligan who left the goalkeeper with no chance of stopping it to bring the Anchors level.

Stockton followed up with some very good chances. In the 20th minute, Stephen Thompson met a cross from Kevin Hayes but his shot curled narrowly wide.

Stephen Thompson, who caused problems to the Grimsby defence all game, came close to the target again in the 34th minute when he found some space on the edge of the box and tried to find the bottom left corner but again just missed the goal.

Stockton had a massive chance on the stroke of half time when another corner found the head of Dale Mulligan, but his header was fantastically met by a diving save, right in the top corner, by Liam Higton in the Grimsby goal. 

The sides went into the break with the scores at one apiece.

Four minutes after the resumption, Matty Tymon thought he had given the Anchors a lead, after a rebounded tap in, but the linesman adjudged the striker to have been in an offside position. 

Callum Roberts was called into action on multiple occasions early in the second half, but he was equal to multiple dangerous Grimsby opportunities, the best of which coming in the 67th minute when a header from a corner was met by an open Grimsby defender, but the Anchors number one was there to meet it. 

The best chances of the second half for the Anchors came immediately after. First of all it was Stephen Thompson who had a diving header rejected by the crossbar which was cleared for a corner before anyone could rebound it. Then from the following corner, Thompson again taps an effort goal-bound which Adam Drury stops on the line and despite the ball travelling across the goal line, it doesn’t cross it before being cleared by Grimsby’s defence.

The final chance of the game came in the 90th minute, when a cross from the left wing was met by a sliding interception by Tom Coulthard that ended up heading goal-bound, but luckily Callum Roberts was there  to get ahold of it to secure the important point for the Anchors.