UNITED faced a trip to Royal Wootton Bassett’s new Gerard Buxton Sports Ground in the first round of the Wiltshire Senior Cup.
The pitch surface was excellent, which gave both teams the opportunity to play some good passing football, early exchanges and Westbury were definitely looking like the stronger team, but it was Wootton Bassett who struck first. a pacey counter-attack down their right hand side led to a corner, the corner was met by Bassett’s Mark James to make it 1-0.
Westbury continued with the pressure and on the 15-minute mark, Morgan Skipp crossed from the left, the Bassett keeper couldn’t hold on and spilt the ball out for a corner. Joe Kirkpatrick delivered the corner which was headed clear and Bassett set off on another counter attack, this time they were in 1-on-1 with young goalkeeper Brandon Sawyer. Sawyer raced off his line and made an excellent save down to his left.
Six minutes later, Ben Griffiths threaded an inch-perfect low pass through the Bassett defence into the path of the motoring Demkiv, who rounded the keeper and coolly finished into the empty net, to take his tally to 12 goals in 15 games.
The Westbury dominance continued with Demkiv and Dan Kovacs drifting out to the left, to overload the right side of the Bassett defence with Skipp. A cross was delivered and only headed clear as far as Jamie Jordan, whose left-footed volley looked accurate and powerful; unfortunately team mate Francois Allen was between Jordan and the goal and it bounced clear off his chest.
Minutes before half time Allen was racing back to help his defence, his tackle was ruled to be a foul and a freekick was awarded in line with the right hand side of the penalty area, 30 yards from goal. Nick Stanley stepped up and managed to curl it inside of Sawyer’s left-hand post to make it 2-1 to Bassett at half time.
Westbury were patiently passing the ball around, when Jamie Jordan picked up the ball wide out on the left, 40 yards from goal. He looked up, saw a gap and fired a looping shot over the goalkeeper’s head to get Westbury level.
At 2-2 the game opened up and before the 90-minute mark, Jordan Pinder cleared one off the line and Captain Steve Hulbert bossed his defence to make sure they stayed alert and kept the Westbury goal well protected. Two minutes before full-time, Joe Stradling found himself one-on-one with the Bassett left back. He twisted and turned, then raced clear into the penalty area, and from a tight angle he delivered a low powerful cross come shot, Allen was lurking and his presence was enough to put the keeper off and watch the ball cross the line for Westbury’s third and the winning goal.
An excellent reaction from the young Westbury squad after Saturday’s disappointment, they now look forward to tough home fixtures against Bitton (24th October) followed by a trip to Clevedon (27th October).
Westbury Team: Brandon Sawyer, Ben Griffiths, Morgan Skipp, Will Stead, Jordan Pinder, Steve Hulbert Cpt, Jamie Jordan, Joe Kirkpatrick, Callum Demkiv, Dan Kovacs, Francois Allen. Subs: Joe Stradling, Ryan Baggs, Waleed Bakali (used). MOTM: Jamie Jordan.
Westbury have been drawn at home to Odd Down(Bath) in the Les Philips Cup. This fixture will take place at the Westbury Park Engineering Stadium, Wednesday 31st October, 7.30pm kick off.
• United sit in third spot in the league with 25 points from 9 games. They have games in hand on the two teams above them.
