Cirencester Town FC
The home of football, corporate events, courses and celebrations
Cirencester Town FC
The home of football, corporate events, courses and celebrations
Cirencester Town visited in-form Shortwood United, who had won their last five matches, on the back of a disastrous run of three successive defeats, conceding 12 goals in the process.
With the match in doubt until an hour or so before kick off, due to the atrocious weather conditions, the pitch played as well as could have been expected and both teams contributed to a well-contested and closely fought match.
Ciren were still missing the influential Jamie Reid, who has now finally been diagnosed with a broken leg, and striker Sam Collier who was still sruggling to overcome a bad ankle injury. However, Brian Hughes, had been successful in shoring up his defence with the introduction of Leigh Henry, on loan from Maidenhead United, making his debut at centre back alongside Ricky Allaway and Chris Thompson in a back three, with Ellis Dunton and Aiden Bennett pressing forward as wing-backs.
In the first half, Ciren probably had the better of the play, although Shortwood had more outright chances. Terry Bohane put the ball in the net only for the goal to be ruled out for offside, and Ciren goalkeeper, David Evans, made two important saves to prevent Shortwood going ahead.
At the other end, Leigh Henry just failed to connect properly with an unapposed header from a well-taken Ben Wells corner.
HT Score: 0 - 0
Early in the second half, the weather eased and both teams played some entertaining football, without really threatening either goal.
In the 82nd minute, young Brad Hooper replaced George Washbourne up front and showed some good touches in his first cameo appearance for the first team.
With the weather again deteriorating towards the end, the match finished 0 - 0, which was probably a fair reflection of the game and, given the poor performances in our last three matches, Brian Hughes will have been very pleased with the clean sheet and the overall battling performance shown by the players against an in-form Shortwood team.
Cirencester Town Man of the Match: David Evans
Attendance: 82
Referee: Steve Glyde
Shortwood United:
1. Tom King
2. James Coates
3. Callum Brown
4. Mark Pritchett
5. Ashley Thomas (C)
6. James Baldwin
7. Joe Tustain
8. Jake Parrott
9. Terry Bohane
10. Luke Gullick
11. Ross Langworthy
12. John Cant
14. Matt Bennett
15. Tim Haddock
16. Jody Bevan
17. Alton Axton
Cirencester Town:
1. David Evans
2. Aiden Bennett
3. Ellis Dunton
4. Ricky Allaway (C)
5. Leigh Henry
6. Chris Thompson
7. Ben Wells
8. Joe Shepherd
9. Sam Packer
10. George Washbourne
11. James Mortimer-Jones
12. Scott Griffin
14. Nathan Hawkins
15. Brad Hooper (on for George Washbourne - 82 mins)