Drove down to Romsey with Andy for our second visit to the Bypass ground and for both of us, our first experience of watching Bemerton as the away team.
Arrived at the ground in plenty of time for kickoff, sadly for Andy the bar wasn't manned and the pumps were all covered with beer towels. Instead of tucking into a pint we sat outside and watched the players preparing for the game. Romsey were playing a 2 touch passing game while Bemerton warmed up with some running across the width of the pitch.
When the game started, Bemerton (in orange instead of black and white diamonds) had the best of the early chances and Romsey's keeper was lucky on a couple of occasions when the ball beat him but rebounded back to him from a post or one of his teammates. Romsey had a couple of decent freekicks and from one of these, the Bemerton keeper pushed the ball over the crossbar. Romsey took a short corner and when the ball was eventually played into the box, one of their players ran in at the back post and planted a firm header into the back of the net. Normal service then resumed with some end to end moves, dubious offside decisions and a couple of cynical challenges, one of which earnt a Romsey player a yellow card. When a Bemerton player was not reprimanded for a tackle from behind, the Romsey player commented to the complaining spectators that he meant to play the man - so it was a fair cop! Romsey came close in the 40th minute with a cross that almost went in and had to be tipped over the bar.
Whilst listening to the Radio 5 commentary from Anfield in the car at half time, we agreed that while Bemerton had played well in defence and midfield, they hadn't been able to get behind the well organised Romsey defence to cause too many problems in the first half. A bit like the spellchecker for the program which gave us a few laughs.
This continued in the second half, when we moved to the other side of the pitch for a change of scenery. Bemerton became frustrated up front and the number 9 seemed to spend more time arguing with the ref and swearing than concentrating on his football.
Romsey scored a second goal on 68mins when a low shot from the edge of the box went straight through the crowd. Bemerton continued to try and get back into the game but too many balls were played up in the air or shots were scuffed from close range. The referee added on 4 minutes at the end of the game which was a surprise as there had been no stoppages for injuries, only a couple of substitutions. In the fifth minute of injury time, a Bemerton player received a straight red card for a 2 footed stamping tackle. 30 seconds after that the referee blew up and Romsey were top of the table, with a two point lead over Poole Town having played a game more.
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