Gloucestershire County League

Thornbury Town 4 Hanham Athletic 1

THORNBURY Town will face a potential Gloucestershire County League title decider on Saturday when they travel to Lebeq United.

The top two have just four points separating them, with second-placed Lebeq holding a game in hand over Thornbury as they head into the business end of the season.

So it was crucial for Town to maintain that lead before the big clash when they played bottom of the table Hanham Athletic last Saturday at the Mundys Playing Fields – and they managed to do just that.

Thornbury were on top for a large proportion of the game. They opened the scoring on 10 minutes when Tom Webb sent a good cross into Craig Lancastle who coolly pulled the ball down before planting it in the visitors net.

Four minutes later we had an almost identical move only this time the ball was crossed in by Joe Guest with Lancastle dealing with it in the same way.

The home side continued to press for more goals and struck the upright twice and the bar once before the break, then a minute to half time Hanham struck the ball came into the Thornbury box it was poorly cleared and James Fry struck a sweet half volley into the Thornbury net.

The visitors defended much better in the second half and it took the home side until the 80th minutes before they got a third goal and it came when Matt Davies raced into the box and was brought down and Lancastle stepped up to net the penalty and complete his hat-trick.

Town got a fourth two minutes from the end when Toby Bennett’s free kick was parried by the Hanham keeper but Mark Viner was on hand to score from a tight angle.