Due to the bad weather, Warminster had not played since February 8th and now faced promotion-chasing Sherborne Town. The Zebras started the day in 5th place, just 3 points adrift of the league leaders Calne Town. On a sticky surface, both teams, for much of the game, matched each other with Sherborne eventually coming out as 2 – 0 winners.
The visitors squandered a first-half opportunity to score when on 33 minutes a penalty was awarded. Williams took the penalty, striking the ball low and hard with keeper Crabtree rooted to the floor who watched the ball hit the post and the danger pass.
The Red & Blacks had a number of first-half opportunities but failed to capitalise on them, a notable one in the 13th minute when debutant Dalitso Mandson found himself one on one with the keeper. Beale in goal for Sherborne did well to get his feet to it and snuff out the danger. The keeper was outstanding for the visitors in reading the game well and coming out to meet the home side’s attacking players and clear the ball. Halftime 0 – 0.
Early in the second half (52), Allen for Warminster also had a one on one with the keeper but again Beale proved to be a barrier. 5 minutes later Allen pressured the keeper to clear the ball. Beale miss kicked it, and Allen picked up the ball again, but his shot was saved by Beale diving to his right. Minutes later Allen forced yet another save.
Sherborne’s opener came in the 63rd minute, a ball in from the right found the head of number 9, Herrin, and with a looping header found the top right corner. With just over 10 minutes to go, Warminster’s captain was sin-binned leaving 10 men on the pitch, he did return though for the final few minutes. In additional time, The Zebras doubled their tally with an easy tap in goal scored by Sam Farthing.
After the game, Warminster’s manager, Andy Crabtree had this to say. “Obviously disappointed with the 2-0 defeat .. anyone who watched the game will know we were a little unlucky. Goals win games and had we taken our chances the outcome could and should have been very different. But we didn’t and paid the price. I can’t be too critical of our performance as we did enough to gain at least a point.
The first goal was a tremendous header by their striker and the 2nd came as a result of us chasing the game and getting caught on the break late on. We’ll play a lot worse a win and I’m confident we will see an upturn in fortunes in the near future.”
Team: Crabtree, McFerran H, Jeffrey, Graham, De Silva*, Lisowski, Miluk, Pawley, Madson*, Allen, Barnes*,
Subs (*used) Shanley*, Curtis*, McFerran O*, Ball