United held to a draw, but hold on to second place

Sat. 12th Mar. UHL Hellenic Sport Premier Brimscombe & Thrupp 2 Westbury United 2

WESTBURY took half a step towards securing second place but lost ground on the Uhlsport Hellenic League leaders, Bishop Cleeve.

Local rivals Corsham managed to grab a point at home to Cribbs, to ensure the team currently closest to Westbury in the table did not gain any ground. With four points required from their final four games, Westbury should be confident that they will finish the season in second place, but as the old saying goes ‘it’s a funny old game’ and anything could still happen.  

It was a slow start to the game with Brimscombe setting their stall out early to slow the game down and disturb Westbury’s rhythm. Daniel Brabham in goal for Brimscombe was the primary offender; no-one could work out if he actually had an issue with his stomach or if it was part of the plan to slow the game down. He received treatment from the physio after only ten minutes and then at the next goal kick he delayed the restart again, whilst he took some sort of tablet. A few minutes later Ricky Hulbert out muscled his marker on the right-hand side and set the ball to Ashton Shanley with a shooting opportunity centrally on the edge of the area. Shanley opted to pass the ball left to Ryan Bole arriving from left back and Bole fired a low hard shot past Brabham. 

Stradling had a good run down the left before Brimscombe won a corner which was well defended and carried to safety by Harvey Flippance and passed to Callum Demkiv. He won a throw in high up the pitch, in an ideal location for Ronnie Frost to deliver one of his trade mark launches into the area, the throw came to nothing. Brimscombe won another corner after a low free kick was saved low to his left by Mark Bowden. Westbury failed to clear the ball effectively, which presented the chance to Harlie Price to make it 1-1. Westbury had a couple of chances after good work by Flippance, Stradling and then Callum Demkiv down the left-hand side. Brimscombe also had chances, one was blazed high over the bar (the hill and the fence on top of the hill) and they took the lead on half time when their own long throw specialist propelled the ball into the area. Frost was unlucky with his defensive header as it ricocheted off the back of an attacker and fell to Oli Barnes to give Brimscombe a 2-1 lead at half time. 

It was nearly 60 minutes until Westbury got into the flow in the second half. They were moving the ball side to side nicely, keeping possession in the Brimscombe half. Frost opened them up with a nice little lifted ball over the head of the defender, to put Steve Hulbert in down the right to fire a cross across goal, but no one could reach it to finish. Moments later, Westbury won a corner which was delivered to the back post for Hutchings to head back across goal to Demkiv, whose header struck the underside of the bar and went in to draw Westbury level. Both teams had chances to snatch all of the points but neither could take them and a draw was probably a fair result at 90 minutes.  

Star Man: Callum Dem-kiv, Team: Bowden, Hutchings, Bole, Frost, Price©, Shanley, Stradling, S.Hulbert, R.Hulbert, Demkiv, Flippance. Subs: Thomson, Jordan, Biddiscombe (used) James, Baldy (unused)