Wrington redhill A v Clapton-in-Gordano A
12th September 2015
Newly formed Wrington Redhill A welcomed Clapton to their temporary Congresbury home for their first game in the Weston and district league. The Wrington manager had to reshuffle his best made preseason plans due to lack of availability of nearly all of his midfield players but the players who stepped in did the club proud as every one of the 12 players gave absolutely everything they had to give in this battling defeat to a well drilled team who clearly knew each other’s game much better than the hosts’ did.
The visitors started the stronger regularly testing the solid back four led by stand-in skipper Dave Pullen but couldn’t beat the Wrington ‘keeper Marsh who was all set for tough day between the sticks after a promising start. The home side however took the lead against the run of play.
Following a good move Wrington won a free kick on the edge of the box.Manager McMullen took the responsibility and coolly dispatched the resultant free kick to perhaps fittingly score the first goal of this new project.
The next 15 minutes were then pretty even with both sides creating chances and competing for control of the game. James Marshall did well to break free and could’ve put the home side 2-0 up but his effort went agonisingly wide of the far post. Then followed a defining 5 minutes as Clapton managed to equalise and then saw Seaman, a key part of the back 3, tweak his hamstring and having to replace Marsh in Goal with Jon having to come out and play at the back. A confused passage of play followed with Clapton admirable capitalising a scoring a soft goal to go in 2-1 up at the break.
New signing Josh Bennett, on his way back from injury, suggested a couple of changes at the break which immediately pay dividends with the home side switching to a more familiar 4-4-2 with the calming presence of Matt Lenny coming into the midfield and the hard-working Brean and Withers finding more comfortable positions in left midfield and right back respectably with Stabbins replacing Withers for the last 25 minutes.
Wrington then grew in confidence and played some of their best football with Tom Lucas regularly threatening the Clapton defence and the Wrington attack attempting to test the vistors’ ‘keeper on a more regular basis. Matt Lenny had the best effort with a well struck volley from outside the box which if anything was little too cleanly struck as fell straight into the goalkeepers arms, a foot either side would certainly have seen a different result. The away side however held on throughout this passage of pressure and in fact they had an excellent chance to score but saw a penalty excellently saved by stand in Goalie Seaman. They however put the game beyond question with 5 minutes remaining after scoring from a softly awarded free kick. Wrington had a chance for consolation in injury time with the hard-working Faulkner being brought down 25 yards out. McMullen’s postage stamp effort this time came back off the inside of the upright and bounced across the face of goal with the impressive Lucas denied a late goal by some impressive defending.
Despite the result, the home side can be encouraged by their performance levels and be encouraged how the team grew as the game went on. Man of match goes to Sam Fowkes who gave a faultless display despite (apparently!) being played out of position. Next up is an away trip to another new
side St.Pauls Church – with the first points surely not far away given the performance shown in this game against an impressive outfit.