Wed. 30th Sept. Toolstation Premier Roman Glass St George 1 Westbury Utd 4
AN excellent first half give Westbury an unassailable lead at Roman Glass St George’s Oakland Park.
It was the first wet matchday of the season, thankfully the rain had stopped by the time Westbury arrived at the ground and with the game being played on the artificial surface, there was no worries about muddy goalmouths.
With Roman Glass St George occupying 4th position and Westbury 5th in the league at kickoff, Westbury knew that they needed to be in top form from the whistle. It took around two minutes for Westbury to open the scoring, a freekick curled in from Biddiscombe was met by the head of Price before the keeper could get his fist to it, and into the net the ball went.
Less than 15 minutes in and Westbury doubled their lead through Sammy Jordan, The Roman Glass defence struggled to clear the ball and Jordan capitalised to smash the ball home. Westbury lost influential defender Dan Jordan to injury just after the second goal, he was replaced by Jamie Jordan who instantly picked up the speed of the match and from the unfamiliar left back position was heavily involved. He started the move that went through Westbury skipper Steve Hulbert and on to Biddiscombe, who cut inside to driving a curling effort that bounced off the top of the far upright.
Roman Glass thought they had a goal back on the half hour mark when a shot deceived Bowden; thankfully the assistant referee had his flag up and the goal was disallowed due to an offside. Minutes later Steve Hulbert got on the scoresheet, another Westbury corner couldn’t be cleared, Hulbert retained possession in the penalty area and lifted the ball over the onrushing keeper to make it 3-0.
The goal of the game came on the forty minute mark, Steve Hulbert won back possession after some neat play, the ball was passed to Stradling who drove forward from the centre circle and made a perfectly-timed pass to Sammy Jordan. Jordan’s speed took him clear of the defenders and one-on-one with the keeper he smashed a low drive past the keeper’s left hand and into the net to make it 4-0 at halftime.
Westbury stayed on top for the start of the second half, but with the luxury of a four-goal lead they started to look for the spectacular. Biddiscombe, Steve Hulbert and Sammy Jordan all went close with long range efforts. As the game went on, Steve Hulbert was still at the heart of everything for Westbury, however like a boxer who won’t admit defeat, Roman Glass continued to threaten and they got their reward five minutes before fulltime through their skipper Sam Wentland with a fine header from a corner, to make the final score 4-1 which saw Westbury rise to third in the table with 13 points from their first six league games.
Team: Bowden, Hutchings, D.Jordan, S.Gregory, Price, S.Hulbert, Stradling, Thomson, R.Hulbert, S.Jordan, Biddiscombe. Subs: J.Jordan, Robinson, Griffiths (used) Pinder (unused)
Star Man: Steve Hulbert