26-07-05: Grimsby Town (a) 1-1 (HT 1-1) Crowd (3,559)

With David Healy absent as his wife gave birth to their second child, Michael Ricketts was given the chance in the striker's role alongside the impressive Robbie Blake. Kevin Blackwell made many changes to his starting eleven after their game at Parkhead two days previously, designed to give him a look at all his options. He kept his starting eleven together until the sixty-sixth minute, when he made four changes with Matthew Spring replacing Jermaine Wright, Simon Walton coming on for Shaun Derry, Danny Pugh taking over from Eddie Lewis and Ian Morris making his United debut in place of Robbie Blake. Leeds had the better of the play for much of the match and it came as a surprise when Michael Reddy opened the scoring for Grimsby after twelve minutes when he waltzed through some sloppy defending by Matthew Kilgallon and Clarke Carlisle. By that time Stephen Crainey, Jermaine Wright and Gylfi Einarsson had all gone close after good build-up play. No sooner had Grimsby taken the lead than Eddie Lewis fired into the side netting and Jermaine Wright again went close as Leeds pushed forward against a nine man defence. The equalizer came in the twenty-fourth minute when Shaun Derry found Frazer Richardson with a long cross-field ball and the young full-back cut inside to unleash a strong shot which gave the Grimsby goalkeeper Steve Mildenhall no chance. Leeds continued to hold much of the possession and created several chances, but it was the home side that should have taken the lead with only their second shot on target of the night. After fifty-eight minutes, Paul Bolland seemed to go to ground easily as he and Gylfi Einarsson chased a through ball, but from the ensuing penalty, former Leeds Junior Tom Newey saw Ian Bennett dive to parry his spot-kick to safety. While the game faded in the second half Leeds still created enough chances to have won the game convincingly. Goalkeeper Mark Wilberforce, Full-back Ben Parker and inside-forward Gavin Rothery were the Leeds unused substitutes, while Goalkeeper John Lukic, Paul Wilkinson, Terry Barwick, Jermaine Palmer, Glen Downey and Karl Colley formed the Grimsby bench. The Referee was T.M. Kettle (Rutland).

Teamsheet: Courtesy Mark Ledgard