There was a classic encounter at Maunsell Way at the top of the Under 18 League between Wroughton A and Wootton Bassett Town A. Bassett went into the game without the injured Craig Kelly and with Aaron Stevens also unavailable. Things got worse just before kick-off when captain Jonny Aitkenhead, injured the previous day playing for the First Team, was forced to drop out due to the injury. However, Bassett showed more resilience than the previous week at Chalford and it was the vistors who looked the most lively in the early encounters and it was no surprise when Bassett went in front. Calum Dunn did well to hold the ball up against Ross Garcia in the Wroughton defence and then laid an excellent ball into the path of Bassett's top scorer Phil Tearle who found the bottom corner of the net with a fine strike. It remained 1-0 at the break but both sides created numerous chances. Wroughton pulled themselves back into the game early on in the second period when Matt Purse found himself unmarked at a corner to head powerfully into the Bassett net. Both sides continued to create chances and Bassett in particular went close with efforts from Phil Tearle, Tom Marchment, Dean Wason, Calum Dunn and James Baker. At the other end Arran Hall also went close for Wroughton and Jamie Hicks continued to cause the Bassett defence problems with his strong running but both keepers had good games preventing further goals and in the end a share of the points was a fair result. The only disappointing part to the day was the broken nose suffered by Bassett's Tom Holmes in an accident when he bravely put his head in for a challenge with a Wroughton players boot. Keeper Richard Hanley was outstanding for Bassett as was stand in captain George Drewitt as, despite the absence of some of the big name players, Bassett came away from the leaders with a share of the spoils.

Credit: Mark Smedley
Last modified on Wednesday 30th December 2020 at 22:21