Ross Sports Centre, 1st April 2006

Well after threatening for the last few weeks to boost our goals for record we travelled to Ross Town knowing that our opponents were struggling at the bottom of the table and hopeful that this could be the match to do it in.

We started cautiously and needed John Haines to be alert as Ross had a couple of half chances from outside the area, but we then began to stamp our authority on the game and had several chances to open the scoring before Gazza scored with a thumping shot from the edge of the area following a corner.

There was only going to be one winner now and we played some lovely football on a very heavy and wet surface and looked like scoring from every attack and but for two fine saves from the Ross keeper when Matt Bennett was through on goal the game would have been safe long before Nathan Hall scored our second goal from a acute angle to give us a 2-0 lead at the interval.

In the second half the players were superb and frustrated our opponents by playing some possession football as they carried out the managements half time instructions of being patient and wait for the openings to arrive, but with an onus of getting the ball on the deck and passing the ball around.

Paul Crabtree had to be replaced by Sam Lawro ten minutes into the 2nd half as he had taken a knock on his hip in the first half and it wasn′t long after that Matt Bennett was again in a one on one position with the keeper but this time instead of shooting early he took it around him and slotted into an empty net for our third goal.

We then made another change as Anthony McCusker replaced Stu Hemsley with thirty minutes to go but still we pressed forward and played some lovely one touch football which was starting to get to Ross as they started to put in several late and dangerous tackles which unfortunately the referee seemed to think that just a simple chat would stop.

Our football created several more chances and Gazza, Nathan and JD could have added to our goals, but the afternoon was to belong to Matt Bennett who went on to score a couple more goals and in doing so duly completed a much deserved hat-trick and looks back to his best which is great news both for him and more importantly Wootton Bassett Town and means a certain Mr Hemsley had better start hitting the net again if he wants to finish as top scorer.

With the game now comfortably won, we needed to keep our discipline and make sure we kept a clean sheet and this we did do and the last ten minutes saw Steve Yeardley make way for manager Paul Burke to add one more appearance to his club record tally and complete an emphatic win and our best victory of the season.

Man of the match: Matt Bennett - Scored three and didn′t let the goalkeepers saves in the first half affect him as he finished superbly in the second half.

Team Rating: 9/10 - A great team performance, which included some great football and the players kept their discipline when our opponents tried to resort to rough tactics. It was just a shame that Scoop wasn′t there to see it, but no doubt he would have gave us the same mark. (Ha, Ha)

Credit: Paul Burke
Last modified on Wednesday 16th September 2020 at 14:26