Gloucester County League

Thornbury Town 1 Bristol Telephones 3

By Malcolm Carr

WHILST their own title hopes have ended, Thornbury Town were hoping to put a dent in Bristol Telephones own ambitions of claiming the County League Championship Trophy, however the visitors capitalised on some individual mistakes and went into the break with a comfortable 3-0 lead.

Opening exchanges had been fairly even with Blacker heading over the bar for Telephones and Luke Franklin’s curling shot also going narrowly over the bar in the first five minutes.

Whilst Tom Webb and Toby Bennett both had shots saved by Telephones keeper Will Osborne, the visitors always looked dangerous, especially when leading scorer Dhani Golding was on the ball.

Tom Sheppard, in Thorns goal, had saved well from Golding before the big striker gave the visitors the lead in the 25th minute. Following a clear run on goal, his first shot was blocked by Nathan Sage but he tucked away the rebound.

Telephones extended their lead on 31 minutes when Ben Griffith’s shot struck the crossbar and rebounded off Nathan Sage and into the net as the centreback rushed back to clear.

By now, the visitors were dominant although Town continued to press forward when they could and five minutes before the break Joe Guest went close with a volley from the edge of the penalty area.

However it was Telephones who had the last word in the 45th minute when Golding’s shot was saved by Tom Sheppard but the ball ran loose to Luke Palmer to drive home.

The second half proved to be a fairly scrappy affair but with Thorns probably edging possession.

A long ball forward saw Craig Lancastle in a race with Osborne to get to the ball first and whilst the keeper won the duel he carried the ball out of his area and Town were awarded a free-kick.

Luke Franklin’s driven set piece flew into the net before Osborne could move and gave Thorns some hope of getting back into the game with 25 minutes left.

Town pushed forward and started to find gaps in the visitors defence and Mark Viner headed narrowly over the bar from Franklin’s cross on 34 minutes whilst five minutes later Nathan Irwin’s goalbound shot was blocked and Scott McLeod fired the rebound wide.

In the dying moments, Will Howard was through one-on-one with the keeper but Osborne just got a foot to the ball to deflect the shot for a corner.

The resultant kick saw panic in the visitors defence as they cleared the ball off the line.

This Saturday, Town travel to Southmead Athletic looking to get back to winning ways. Kick off at Southmead is 3:00pm.