Royal Wootton Bassett Town Under 18s missed out on the chance to go joint top of the Wiltshire League Floodlit Division table after losing 1-0 at home against Kingsdown.

Kingsdown had the chance to move above their opponents into second place with a win of their own. A tight affair was anticipated, and it proved to be just that, decided by the narrowest of margins.

Kingsdown had the better of things in the early stages but were restricted to a couple of efforts from distance.

The first chance of the half that came the way of the home side was when a poor clearance from the Kingsdown keeper went straight to Joe Beavis on the edge of the box, but he fired his shot just over.

Kingsdown then went close to breaking the deadlock as twice Bassett keeper Tom Davis denied them. First a neat through ball put Josh Atwell clear of the defence and his initial powerful shot was well blocked by Davis with the ball rebounding to a Kingsdown player who was following up and whose shot was then cleared by Davis with his feet to prevent his side from going behind.

Kingsdown then had a shout for a penalty which was waved away but they were to eventually make the breakthrough.

A run at the defence by Atwell saw him stumble but still get a pass away to Ethan Lee on the right hand side of the Bassett 18-yard box and, as keeper Davis came out, Lee fired a low and pin-point shot in the far corner of the net to give the visitors the lead.

That was to be the only goal of the first half - and the game.

The second half saw the home side look to get back on level terms and the closest they went was when a free kick from the right to the far post was met by the head of Rhys Westlake but this time it was the turn of the Kingsdown keeper to deny an opposition striker with a good save with the ball then being cleared to safety by his defence.

After that Bassett had a couple of chances from distance but didn't look like troubling the Kingsdown goal.

Both sides were then guilty of some late challenges from behind which required the referee to show a yellow card, with Kingsdown's Atwell being one of those to pick up a card which would have ramifications later on.

As the game moved into the closing stages it was the visitors who went closet to scoring and had a couple of good chances which should perhaps have been put away to make sure of the three points but it remained just the one.

A second mistimed challenge from Atwell saw him unfortunate to pick up a second yellow card and a dismissal late on but his side comfortably saw out the final minutes to take all three points and move ahead of their beaten opponents into second place, two points behind leaders Bristol Manor Farm having played one more game.

Credit: Mark Smedley
Last modified on Monday 20th November 2023 at 12:49