Tag: Welton Rovers FC

Playoff Final: Warminster Town 0 Welton Rovers 1

After an exciting climax to the end of the season in which Sherborne Town was promoted as champions, Warminster Town came second with 89 points. Following them in third, Wincanton Town on 88 points and Welton Rovers in fourth on 88 points. In fifth place and with 63 points came Radstock Town. These four teams now had to enter the playoffs, and with Warminster triumphing over Radstock, the final was between Warminster and Welton.

Not much separated the two teams; in the first tie of the season, Welton came to Weymouth Street and, from 1-0 down, managed two late goals to win 1-2. In the away fixture, Warminster were the victors, scoring the match’s only goal. Therefore, the Playoff Final was expected to be a tight affair, and so it proved to be.

In front of a large crowd of 652, the two teams went head to head. Throughout much of the game, both teams were cancelling each other out, and chances of a clear sight at goal were limited. Welton sealed the win with the game’s only goal in the second half. 

Welton had an excellent opportunity to go ahead in the 20th minute; there was some uncertainty by the Warminster defence to get the ball away. Welton pounced on this, and fortunately, the shot went well over the bar.

Cameron Allen in the 34th minute was sin-binned, leaving Welton with ten men for the compulsory 10 minutes off the field of play. The home side tried to capitalise on having the extra man. Welton, however, stood firm. Warminster’s number 11, McKay, in the 44th minute, saw his shot blocked before it could go between the sticks. Welton had a late chance (46’), but the shot was too weak to trouble Thomson, and the first half finished goalless.

Eleven minutes into the second half, Thomson made a superb save to tip Toby Cole’s shot over his crossbar. A close call and for not an excellent save, Welton would have scored. The Red & Blacks were pressing and getting closer in those opening minutes. McKay got the ball into the back of the net (58’),  only to see the goal disallowed and receive a yellow card. But it was Welton Rovers who scored in the 65th minute courtesy of defender Joe Garland. A free-kick was floated into the area, knocked down, and Garland ran a few yards across the area, shooting low in the left. Thomson was probably unsighted by players ahead of him and didn’t quite reach the ball to prevent the goal.

Andy Crabtree, Warminster’s manager, made substitutions to bring on fresh legs to put more pressure on Welton’s defenders. Despite working hard to level up the score and five additional minutes of added time, the goal never came. Sadly, as with any final, only one team can win. Warminster Town can be proud of the best season in their history and look forward to next season and building on the progress made, both on and off the pitch. 

Team: Thomson, Graham, Cockerill, Jeffery, De Silva, Humphreys, Wain(s), Mortimer-Taylor, Johnson(s), Bartley, McKay(s), 

Subs: (used) Miluk, Morris, Gardiner

(unused) Seviour, McFerran 

Welton Rovers 0 Warminster Town 1

The Tuesday evening game drew in a large crowd of 185 at West Clewes to watch Welton Rovers v Warminster Town. With Welton in 2nd place and 4 points ahead of third-placed Warminster this was a big game for both sides. Warminster came away with a one-nil win to warm up the away fans on a cold night. 

The game was mainly a scrappy affair, especially the first 45 minutes. It was apparent that both sides knew the importance of this game and both sides attempted the long ball game. There were good opportunities to score, Welton hit the bar on 36 minutes and 5 minutes later Vincent for Warminster looked set to score but the ball stayed out of the net.

The deadlock was broken in the second half in the 70th minute. Mortimer-Taylor’s corner was headed home at the front post by Martin Johnson, his tenth goal of the season. 

Welton Rovers have a reputation for salvaging games and indeed winning right at the end. This game almost went that way for them was it not for two incredible saves from Sam Thomson, with one final minute save that would grace any TV pundit’s review on Match of the Day.  

Team: Thomson, Humphreys, Cockerill, Jeffery, Graham, Bartley, Vincent(s), Mortimer-Taylor, Johnson, Wain(s), Seviour(s)

Subs: (used) Milburn, Gardner, Jordan

(unused) McFerran H, De Silva

Warminster Town 1 Welton Rovers 2

This match promised to be a titanic battle under floodlights, and so it proved to be. Welton Rovers unbeaten and top of the table, arrived at Weymouth Street full of confidence by their successful start to the season. The game was goalless at halftime with 3 goals coming in the second half, finishing, Warminster Town 1 Welton Rovers 2.

Welton had several opportunities to score in the opening forty-five minutes, however, Sam Thomson’s safe hands prevented the ball from going into the back of the net. At the very end of this half, Warminster had a great chance to score only to see McKay’s shot fly well over the opposition’s goal.

With everything to play for and in front of a good crowd of 151, the home side got off to a good start. On 54 minutes McKay fired home after Welton failed to clear the box a couple of times. McKay was in the right place when the ball came to him on the left-hand side of the goal and he made no mistake in smashing home from close range.

Welton have shown this season that they are never out of a match, and even though down to 10 men at the time due to Batchelor being sinned binned, scored the equaliser. On 73 minutes, Kyle Box right-footed home from inside the penalty area, after Warminster failed to clear the ball.

Warminster had a great opportunity to take the lead again but the shot from Lewis Graham on the 18-yard line, flashed just wide of the post.

Rovers second goal came with 4 minutes of normal time remaining. A free-kick 10 yards inside the home side’s half was chested down by Garland in the box, leaving Joe Ellis to smash the ball past Thomson.

Both goals were disappointing to have conceded and the Red & Blacks missed out on an opportunity to put a dent in Welton’s grip on the league.

Team: Thomson, Bartley, Milburn, Cockerill, De Silva, Churchyard, Hiscocks, Johnson M, Graham(s), Wain(s), McKay(s)

Subs: (used) Humphry, Atkins, Miluk
(unused) Johnson L, Seviour

Welton Rovers 3 Warminster Town 0

Errors are costly for Warminster Town

Following a good performance at Wells City, Warminster travelled to the unbeaten and top of the league Welton Rovers. Playing in wet and windy conditions, the visitors took the game to the home side and created several opportunities to score. In the first 30 minutes, Warminster put good pressure on the Rovers defence, forcing a good save, hitting the crossbar and making the opposition players tackle well and clear the ball.

Much against the run of play, Warminster gave away a free kick on the edge of the penalty area in the 35th minute. Kyle Box shot low with precision around the wall into Hotine’s right side of goal and past the diving keeper just inside the post.

At the end of the first half, a header from Churchyard for Warminster forced another save from the keeper, but the halftime score would stand at 1-0.

Before 20 minutes of the second half had elapsed, Warminster’s manager, Andy Crabtree used all 3 substitutes, as the visitors were now finding it more difficult to manage the game as they had done in the first half. On came, Lisowski, Wain and Miluk for, Churchyard, Bartley and Johnson.

The substitutions energised Warminster, and once again they started to put more pressure on the home side. The hope of a comeback was lost when Welton made a counter-attack in the 76th minute. Sisson lost the ball deep into the Welton half, and Chris Pile made the long run towards Warminster’s goal, With just De Silva to beat he shot low to Hotine’s left, with the keeper not quite getting his hands to the ball to prevent the goal.

The third goal came with 2 minutes of normal time remaining when a defensive mix up saw Hotine left well out of his goal and Courtney Charles had all the time in the world to almost walk the ball into the net.

Warminster were the masters of their downfall in this game, and lessons will have to be learned for future matches.

Welton remains unbeaten at the top of the Toolstation Western League division 1.

Next match: Warminster Town v Devizes Town on Saturday October 31st.

Team: Hotine, Sisson, Barnes, Jeffery, De-Silva, Churchyard*, Mortimer-Taylor, Bartley*, Allen, Johnson*, Butler Subs: (used) Miluk*, Seviour, Lisowski*, Wain*

Warminster Town 0 v Welton Rovers 1

The first match of the season kicked off with Warminster Town wearing their new red and black kit. Following a campaign to attract more football fans through the gate it was good to see 174 in attendance. In fact, 2 Warminster supporters, Paul & Barbara travelled all the way from Kent to be here and as a thank you had their photo taken before the start of the game with some of the players.

It proved to be an entertaining game of football with honours going to Welton Rovers with the only goal scored in the first half. Warminster had an early opportunity when new signing Kieran Baggs (former manager of Melksham Town) broke free down the left, got around the keeper and the shot cleared off the line. A couple of minutes later following good work from Jack Miluk, George Butler found himself with an opportunity to shoot but the ball went high and wide over the goal.

Rover’s goal came in the 21st minute when a long range pass from Joe Garland caught out the Warminster defence and found Lewis Coleman who kept the ball away from defender McFerran. This left the attacker clear in centre of goal, at the edge of the penalty area to be able to run into the box. Whilst sliding to get to the ball to beat the onrushing keeper Crabtree he was able to toe-poke home the ball.

Shortly after the goal, Warminster had a good chance to level up when Martin Johnson flicked towards goal a good cross from Miluk but the keeper was covering his near post and pulled off a good save. This half produced several opportunities for both sides with Warminster seeming to shoot high, whereas Rovers did bring into action Carl Crabtree with some fairly easy saves but nevertheless necessary ones.

The second half got underway with Warminster determined to close the gap. Johnson went close in the opening minutes which keeper, Thomas Drewitt cleared with his leg. On 61 minutes Charlie Walton had a good opportunity for the Red & Blacks with a shot just over Rovers’ crossbar. During this half manager Andy Crabtree brought on 3 substitutes to keep the attack going. Miluk, Johnson and Baggs were replaced with Mortimer-Taylor, Wright and Vincent.

A few other opportunities came Town’s way with the fresh legs but were unable to convert. The home side were not quite at the level of sharpness that they have shown possible during the latter part of last season and no doubt this game will have helped them as they look forward to the next one.

After the match assistant manager, Rob McFerran had this to say, “Obviously disappointed that we didn’t get anything from the opening game of the season. The opening encounters saw Welton sharper all over the pitch and we did a lot of chasing trying to get a foothold in the game.

Just as we were getting to grips with the pace of the game we gave away a soft goal from a hopeful long ball that we failed to deal with.

We had plenty of opportunities to level the score before halftime but poor decision making when the better option was to pass the ball rather than shoot and woeful finishing saw us go in at the interval a goal down.

The second half saw us far more attacking with Welton sitting on their lead and credit to their back four limited us to very few chances with all the possession we had. On another day we’d have taken something from the game as Carl had a fairly quiet afternoon, but it wasn’t to be.

We make the short trip to Devizes on Saturday and this gives us the opportunity to bounce back.”

Team: Crabtree, McFerran, Barnes, Graham, De-Silva, Churchyard, Miluk, Walton(C), Johnson, Baggs, Butler Subs: Baggs, Mortimer-Taylor*, Vincent*, Lisowski, Wright* 

*Subs used.