Promotion hunt heats up for 'Bridge (From Gazette Series)

Promotion hunt heats up for 'Bridge

Almondsbury Town 0, Slimbridge 3

A TREMENDOUS first half performance of attacking, passing football containing three well taken goals was enough to secure Slimbridge the points at struggling Almondsbury Town.

From the off the visitors looked comfortable on the ball all over the pitch and took the lead on 16 minutes. Home goalkeeper Chris Gibson weakly punched a cross into the path of Matt Green, who lobbed the ball from 20 yards over a prostrate number of bodies into an empty net.

With the Slimbridge midfield spraying the ball out wide at every opportunity, the Town defence were stretched more and more until, on 27 minutes, the man of the match put the visitors two up. Down the left came Julian Freeman who made ground. Back the ball came to Matt Green who put in a long diagonal cross to the right where Craig Cole took it superbly and laid it into the path of Mike Green, who hit a swerving shot from the edge of the penalty area into the top corner of the net, with Gibson only able to watch it go in.

Seven minutes later it was 3-0 when Cole bundled in a cross from Freeman, who had beaten his man down the right and pulled it back across the face of the goal with inch perfect precision.

On 44 minutes Town had their only clear chance of the game. Danny Thorpe made good progress up the middle and threaded a perfectly weighted ball into the path of Dave O'Connor, who, in attempting to curl his shot round Chandler from some 14 yards, was fractionally off target.

After the mesmeric first half of rich quality, the second half seemed tame by comparison. It seemed that Town, fearing the worst, tightened up defensively and played with just O'Connor up front. The tactic certainly stifled Slimbridge in attack, although Rich Moore and Ross Casey on a number of runs still made life difficult for the home defence.

A couple of late chances fell to Mike Green and Cole respectively, but Town never really troubled the commanding presence at the Slimbridge rear of Andy Pritchett, Leon Sterling and Ashley Thomas.

Slimbridge coach John Evans was moved to say after the game that he'd not seen such a good spell of attacking football in a Hellenic League match for many a day as the first half had produced. High praise indeed.

Slimbridge team: R Chandler, L Sterling, Matt Green, A Pritchett (J Embling 73), A Thomas, R Moore, Mike Green, R Casey, J Freeman (E Ward 73), C Cole, S Badham (G Marshall 71).