Westbury had the first chance of the game after 12 minutes. They had to make an early substitution due to an injury and their sub went one on one with the Downton keeper who made a smart save. While Downton had a couple of chances in the first half, notably an "accidental" save by the Westbury keeper when a header from a free kick was headed against his legs, Westbury were looking more dangerous with several of their shots either going over the bar or saved by the Downton keeper.
Andy and I watched the first half from the sideline by the clubhouse and as time went on, the clouds got darker and darker. After the disappointment of finding out the clubhouse wasn’t serving at halftime, Andy agreed to move into the main stand for the second half before the expected rain started to fall.
Downton had two good shouts for a penalty turned down by the referee. The first one was for a shove on a player which could have gone either way but the second should have been awarded when their striker was hacked down in the box. To everyone’s surprise, the referee didn’t see or hear the tackle and this was too much for one of the Downton players. He made a comment to the referee as he went past him, calling him a disgrace, so earnt a second yellow card.
This put Downton at an immediate disadvantage and Westbury made the most of their extra man. A couple of minutes later, the ball was crossed in from the left and headed in to put Westbury one up. On way back to halfway line something else must have been said to the referee as he brandished his red card again to the Downton no 2 – this time a straight red card.It was hard to tell what it had been given for and some of the crowd seemed in shock as the rain started to fall.
On 65 minutes Westbury added to their lead, as a long shot skidded past the keeper an in. 5 minutes later it was 3.0 – a shot from the left hit the post and bounced straight out to a Westbury player on the right hand side of the box, who smashed it into an empty net.
Andy and I started to speculate that this could be similar to a game we saw at Stockbridge a couple of years ago, where a double sending off led to a glut of late goals.
However Westbury decided to play catch up in the red card stakes – with 10 minutes to go one of their defenders pushed a Downton player in the face in retaliation after he was pushed near the goal line when trying to let the ball go out for a free kick. This reaction gave the referee no option but to send him off – the original offence by the Downton player only earning a yellow card.
Downton grabbed a consolation goal a couple of minutes later. A cross from the left was headed hard down into the ground and bounced up, past the keeper and into the roof of the net. This wound up one of the Westbury supporters who was ranting as his team for not being able to keep the ball in the Downton half.
These words may have inspired Westbury as on 85 minutes they scored again in a similar fashion – a cross came into the centre and a substitute beat the keeper to the ball and headed in. An eventful and enjoyable second half from a neutral point of view!
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