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Bashley Res 2 Winchester City Res 4
Bashley Reserves 2 Winchester City Reserves 4
The season started with a tricky opening day fixture away to Bashley. With a whole bunch of new faces it wasn't going to be easy, against one of the league's best teams.
We started off brightly with some good passing and created the first chance within five minutes when Tom Riddell raced through one-on-one with the goalkeeper, but he put his shot narrowly wide. We continued with the high tempo and good passing but then, against the run of play, Bashley scored with a well worked goal that saw their left back overlap and fire the ball into the bottom left hand corner past keeper Andy Smallpiece. Then for the next ten minutes we took a bit of a battering and Bashley doubled their lead when a poor defensive error by Steve Howard allowed a Bashley striker to toe-poke the ball past Smallpiece from four yards out. Our backs were well and truly up and we created more and more chances as the game went on and, with five minutes of the first half to go, Tom Butcher played the ball over the top for Tom Riddell to run onto, and a clash of their defender and goal keeper allowed the ball to break loose to see Tom tap it into an empty net.
Straight from the restart Butcher again slid the ball in between the two centre halves for debutant Matt Burke to hit a low drive past the goalkeeper. We were not finished there. Right on the stroke of half time Matt Palmer hit a thirty-yard cross field ball to Burke whom with his first touch controlled it brilliantly and with his second lobbed the goalkeeper from twenty-five yards. This all happened five minutes before half time.

The second half started very much like the first with us on top and creating all the chances. But we finally broke through again on the seventy fifth minute when Nick Craig beat three players and cut the ball back for Mark Wells to tap in from six yards. After that the game petered out and some good defensive displays from Dean Lavelle and Rick Staples kept Bashley out.

Great start to the season, our next game is at home to Cowes Sports on Saturday 30th August.
Document last updated: 09/09/2008