Hungerford down the Bluebirds

The Bluebirds remained at the top of the table despite this defeat, but we climbed to 7th.place, with another clean sheet, the game only coming to life in the last half hour. There had been torrential rain for most of the morning, but fortunately it abated by the kick-off and a respectable crowd turned up to reward those who had worked so hard on the pitch. Unfortunately Mark Draycott was missing, serving the last day of his suspension, while Jon Boardman was also missing after that unfortunate sending off at Redditch . However, the rearranged line-up coped fairly well with anything the visitors, who looked surprisingly unambitious, could produce, in a rather uninspiring first half. Perhaps we were lucky when a shot from Ashan Holgate was deflected off Rhys Tyler, but the ball went straight at Paul Strudley who saved well. A dangerous cross from Diak John was just too high for Nat Jarvis and the ball flew off his head past the post but it was still goalless at half time after a disappointing display by both sides.
Alan O’Brien came on for Harry Goodger early in the second half and his pace soon began to influence the game, earning a couple of corners. Strudley saved well from Holgate, although the swerving ball may have gone wide in any case and Gary Horgan was unlucky as he shot just past the foot of the post as we at last began to put pressure on the Chippenham defence and this pressure eventually earned us the winning goal, O’Brien blasting the ball into the roof of the net after 80 minutes.
O’Brien almost made it 2-0 but Kent Kaupinen pulled off a great save, and we had to survive some late attacks in almost 5 minutes of injury time before we could be sure of the points, an excellent result, after our faltering start to the season of which the management and players could be proud.
Team;Strudley, Tyler, John,Horgan, Day, Rees, Clark, Collins, Jarvis(Allen Bossman),Goodger(O,Brien), Brown. Subs;Jones, Stow , Kelvin Bossman .