Westbury United 2-0 Welton Rovers – Toolstation First Division, Saturday 25th Feb

Westbury United were feeling confident and in high spirits after their 3-1 victory the week before at Malmesbury Victoria.

The same formation was played and one change to the team saw Daniel Price in for Stephen Fox who has a back injury.

Both teams struggled to cope with the wind and rain for the first twenty minutes and couldn’t get the ball going for anything of note.

The first and best chance for Westbury was when Jordan Pinder ran up the right wing and whipped a nicely-weighted pass across Charlie Philips’s goal, and Leon Greenland was sliding in full stretch but didn’t quite make contact. A bit like Paul Gascoigne in Euro ‘96 against Germany – so near yet so far!

Welton then whipped in a nice left-footed free kick just outside the box but straight into Keiran Ramsey’s hands.

Then 35 minutes in, Joe Kirkpatrick drove up the right and chipped a cross for Martin Johnson to meet well with his head, but hit it just over the bar.

Soon after, Martin Johnson robbed the left back, Cockerill, of the ball and ran in on goal but, instead of pulling the trigger, he squared the ball to Kirkpatrick who fired a decent shot on goal but tipped over by Philips.

0-0 at half time.

The second half became more like the White Horsemen’s show last week; Westbury dominated possession and moved the ball  all over the park.

Confidence grew within the team and soon the ball was passed from Stevenson to Johnson, who twisted the right-back inside and out, and dinked a cross for Jamie Jordan to head home. 1-0 Westbury United and by this time well deserved!

Right from the kick-off Westbury pressured and harassed the Welton Rovers players who started to moan and groan at each other. Pinder swung a cross in and Welton’s defending header wasn’t strong enough, so Jamie Jordan hit a volley into the bottom left corner of Philips’s net – the nail in the coffin for Welton Rovers !

Team: Kieran Ramsey, Jordan Pinder, Ferris Lamrabet, Matt Jones (c), Daniel Price, Jake Stevenson, Jamie Jordan (56’, 82’), Joe Kirkpatrick, Martin Johnson, George Bendle, Leon Greenland. Subs: Stephen Fox, Otis Young, Peter Sturman, Matt Mantay.