Hamworthy United Reserves 0 Westland Sports 1
Dorset Premier League (Tues 21-04-09)
Hamworthy Reserves were playing their third game in five days. On paper they would need a miracle to get a result from this game, and they so nearly got it. Westland came to the County Ground having lost only one league game all season, and can still finish top of the division with all their games in hand. The Reserves lost 9-0 in the away fixture, and unfortunately own the worse defensive record in the Dorset Premier. On the plus side thanks to the availability of First Team squad players they were able to field a much stronger line up than normal.
Westlands kicked off with a strong wind at their backs and soon settled into their game. United were strengthened with the inclusion of First Team Centre Back Steve Gilbert, who together with seventeen year old future prospect Mark Jamison playing along side of him, formed a formidable partnership at the heart of the Hamworthy defence. Gary Williams continued his steady progress since switching to the middle of the park, and he was ably assisted by the ever reliable Mark Seal in the mid field battle. Sports always had the slight edge, but never really got a clear shot on goal, as the whole Hamworthy side worked hard to contain them. Just as it looked as though they had succeeded in this, Westland scored with a superbly worked goal. The Hammers lost the ball in the Sports half, but failed for once to track back. Westland exchanged passes down the right wing before crossing the ball into the six yard box where it was fiercely struck home giving Steve Wines no chance. The score remained at 1-0 at the break
Hamworthy made a couple of changes after the interval one of which was the introduction of another good future prospect seventeen year old Luke Pidgley up front. The Hammers came a lot more into the game in the second half, and created a few chances of their own, but these were well dealt with by a strong experienced Sports defence. The best chance fell to Steve Gilbert who remained up following a corner, but he was unable to finish and scuffed his shot. In the last ten minutes Mark Jamison was pushed up front in an effort to get an eqaliser, and he did very well, but without success. Hamworthy can take a lot of credit for restricting high fliers Westland to only one real effort on goal all game, unfortunately they scored from that, and that is why they are where they are.
There have been a lot of plusses that have come out of recent Reserve Team games and one of these is if we can keep the nucleus of this side there is something to build on for the future next season.
Team: L. Wines, J. Merritt, S. Coakes, S. Gilbert, G. Williams, M. Jamison, E. Seal (S. Griffiths), M. Seal, A. Turner, L. Keighley (L. Pidgley) J. Cole Unused Subs: G. Clark, J. Christopher, C. Miles