Gloucestershire County League

Thornbury Town 2 Broadwell Amateurs 1

IT IS said that the sign of a good team is one that carves out a win even when they haven’t played at their best and that’s just what happened at the Mundys on Monday afternoon.

Broadwell, who were in a rich vein of form, started brightly giving Thornbury no time on the ball, but were unable to create any chances for themselves.

Gradually Town took control and started to put the visitors defence under pressure with Nathan Irwin steering a shot just wide of a post and Toby Bennett’s free kick going straight to Merry in the Broadwell goal.

Tom Webb was given acres of room on the left and his runs and crosses into the penalty area caused problems for the visitors.

Town’s keeper Tom Sheppard, making his debut, had to be alert to clear the danger from Broadwell’s leading scorer Ross Gabriel but otherwise was relatively untroubled.

Craig Lancastle went close midway through the half but Merry was able to push his shot round the post, whilst Toby Bennett’s cross-cum-shot hit the top of the bar with Merry stranded.

Things suddenly changed in the last couple of minutes when Gabriel set up Burnard who created some space for himself, but Sheppard got down well to save. Moments later Gabriel fired over the Town bar when well placed.

The second half saw Broadwell carry on as they finished the first as they had Thorns on the back foot from the off. Latham’s shot in the first minute was cleared by Nathan Sage and a couple of minutes later Pete Fowler’s superb challenge thwarted Burnard.

In truth, it was no surprise when Broadwell took the lead in the 58th minute as Thorns were found guilty of not closing down quickly enough and allowing Gabriel to unleash an unstoppable shot from 25 yards out.

The visitors continued to press and Sage again came to the rescue to deny Latham and Sheppard punched clear under pressure from a corner.

Thorns didn’t create their first chance of the half until 15 minutes from time when Toby Bennett’s shot went wide, whilst moments later Scott McLeods ball into the box was deflected into Merry’s grateful hands.

With 10 minutes remaining the visitors bench made the decision that changed the game, taking off Gabriel to replace him with another defender.

Within moments, Bennett’s pass out wide to Joe Guest set the full back free and his perfect cross was headed home by Pete Fowler at the near post. Thorns continued to press and Luke Franklin’s shot was well saved by Merry.

However Town weren’t to be denied and in the very last minute Tom Webb linked up with Lancastle whose shot was blocked but the ball fell kindly to Danny Thompson who was able to steer his shot wide of Merry and into the corner of the net to spark off the celebrations.

Thornbury will be looking to maintain their five point lead at the top of the table when they visit Southmead Athletic on Saturday, kick off 3pm.

Meanwhile the Reserves got back to winning ways on New Years Eve with a comfortable 5-2 win against Whitminster.

They’ll be looking to keep that form going when Dursley Town Reserves are the visitors to the Mundys on Saturday, kick off 2pm.