Robson Taylor Chippenham Sunday League News 2008/09  RSS feed | About

Jason Gee

All but one match in the Premier Division was lost to the weather and leaders Biddestone Social were mighty relieved that the rain came to their rescue causing their match away at Maud Heath Sports to be postponed.

Biddestone Social had no recognised goalkeeper for the trip to Maud Heath who, although they are struggling to avoid the drop, would have given Social a good game and might just have proved to be a potential banana skin to Biddestone's hopes of ending Corsham Centre's dominance of the league over the past couple of years.

It was no surprise that second placed Westbury Rangers A were unable to host Winsley at what was a very wet Meadow Lane.

Box Rovers had a near full strength side available for their match against Corsham Centre and when their own pitch was deemed to wet to use they tried to switch the game to the Centre's home patch at Meriton Avenue, but the once reliable venue was also unplayable.

Dog and Fox Ashley were surprised at the amount of water that had fallen overnight leading to the postponement of their match at St Laurence School against an in-form Miller Sports side who were hoping to stretch their unbeaten run to six matches.

Bottom side North Star A left it as late as possible before calling off their game at Priestley Grove, Calne, but in the end they had to disappoint visitors FC Colerne who were en-route to Calne when they received the call to inform them the game was off.

The only match that survived the elements was the one at Holt where the hosts welcomed Bradford News and the game which had been due to be hosted by the newsmen only went ahead after match referee Tony Frith gave it the green light.

The decision was touch and go, but once referee Frith had given it the all-clear, neither team gave him cause to doubt his decision,and Frith was full of praise for both sets of players who contributed to a very enjoyable game for the Melksham-based official.

Both the home side Holt and Bradford News immediately adapted to what were worsening conditions and played some very good football considering the state of the pitch that deteriorated as the match progressed, but throughout they played the game in the right spirit.

Holt won 4-0 but had Bradford's first half defending been a lot better the winning margin would not have been so great.

Bradford were without Danny Hurkett, John Burt and goalkeeper Luke Mayne and with Martin Cowdrey deputising the visitors knew their job of claiming a couple of valuable points in their bid to avoid the drop was always going to be a tough one and although they held out for 20 minutes a crazy 10 minute period gifted Holt a 3-0 lead.

Nick Ross stole in to put Holt 1-0 up after Bradford failed to clear their lines and one soon became two, with Alan Fodder making the most of another gift.

Jason Gee added number three to give the home side a 3-0 half-time advantage and it seemed probable that Holt's merry-men would go on and wrap up an emphatic win with a few more goals.

But the Bradford side emerged a different side after the interval. Mark Hurkett's newsmen upped their work rate in the second 45 minutes and although they didn't scored they were 100 per cent better that they were in the first half and were unlucky not to be rewarded for their efforts.

But when Oliver Gee twisted and turned and fired home a fourth goal for Holt against the run of play 10 minutes from time Bradford knew that their was no way back.

But with a trip to bottom side North Star A next up and with players coming back they know that if they can reproduce the battling qualities that were on show in the second period against Holt then they will have a good chance of picking up the points from a match that could go a long way to deciding the destiny of both teams.

10:39am Monday 17th March 2008

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