Three Things We Learned from Stevenage beating Blackpool: by Sam Cretton for Nub News

Respect: An emotional day at the Lamex, writes Sam Cretton

It was worth waiting one month as Stevenage beat play off contenders Blackpool with an 85th minute strike by Jake Forster Caskey in Boro's first home game of 2024.

The game kicked off with an emotional speech read aloud by the sisters of Liam Sharpe, regarding the boys involved in the fatal car crash last month, which led to the tragic death of Ollie Gatfield, leaving Liam in a critical condition in hospital.

Before the game fans of Stevenage were sceptical of how the travelling fans would act during this tough period for many of the home fans. However, as we saw when Sophie Sharpe started to choke-up during her moving pre-match tribute, we saw Blackpool fans starting the round of applause which helped her throughout.

Fighting through the grief and pain of it Sophie bravely spoke, while both sets of fans sang 'there's only one Ollie Gatfield' which touched the hearts of many. This sign of respect was greatly appreciated by fans of Stevenage and also the players and managers of both clubs as well. 

Vadaine Oliver  

Onto the football. We saw last week at Wigan the quality that Oliver had both in the air and at his feet and that he may be the player that Stevenage have needed for a while, due to the style of play that Steve Evans plays.

From the opening minutes of the game we saw how much of a threat he was, and how much danger he caused for one of the league's most determined defences. A flicked on ball from Jamie Reid met the head of Oliver and he couldn't quite guide his difficult header towards goal. This shows that despite Stevenage fans not being completely won over with the signing, Oliver has already shown in two very difficult games just how good he is. Maybe he is the player that the Stevenage front line has needed to win those aerial battles...

Aaron Pressley: A brilliant performance   

On Thursday we saw that Exeter had put in a bid of £150k for Aaron Pressley then upped it to 200k - which saw many Stevenage fans saying we had to sell him for that sort of money.

However, Saturday's performance shows us why Evans believes in the tall Scot - and why he is still being selected in squads.. When he came on in the 60th minute, many thought that it was the wrong choice in bringing off Oliver - but that wasn't the case.

Aaron won everything in the air, held up the ball brilliantly and brought Stevenage up the pitch when Blackpool started pumping crosses into the box from every angle. Yet, the defence held firm and Stevenage cemented their place in the play off spots.

That performance from Pressley shows us why Evans kept hold of him - and also why he may be very important for Stevenage in the second half of the season in keeping our play-off hopes very much alive.