Alex Byrne claims man of the match on Matlock debut

Byrne, 26, began the season at Cantilever Park with Warrington Town, before a move to Buxton.

He joined Matlock ahead of Tuesday night’s home clash against Morpeth, who visited the Proctor Cars Stadium for the first time.

Spencer Harris was shown a red on 43 minutes, and Matlock went ahead despite being a man down through Marcus Marshall.

Stephen Turnbull was then shown a red, and Morpeth equalized 12 minutes from time through Ryan Hutchinson.

Kyle Trenerry also made his Matlock debut in goal, while Byrne impressed in his first appearance.

“He’s a player I tried to get at Buxton when he was at Warrington,” manager Paul Phillips told MTFC10TV.

“He’s a player I tried to get at Ashton before he went to Warrington.

“I know all about him and we’ve seen it tonight.

“He’s not played for two weeks but he has energy, his work rate, his cleverness off the ball and his delivery, even though I didn’t think it was great tonight, a couple of times he put the ball on a plate for us and we’ve got to get use to that as that’s something we have missed this season.

“I thought he was brilliant,” Phillips continued. “For me, a winger has got to do just as much work off the ball as he does on it. I think we had too many wingers when I walked into the club that were great when we had the ball, but when we didn’t they were a bit of a passenger and we’ve got to change that culture.”

Picture credit - @Matlock_TownFC