Thursday, April 30, 2009

Game 36: Salisbury City 3.1 Swindon Town (Wiltshire Premier Shield Final) 29.04.09

The top four clubs in Wiltshire contest the Wiltshire Premier Shield – for the past few years this has been Swindon Town, Salisbury City, Chippenham and Swindon Supermarine. The rest of the Wiltshire clubs play in the Wiltshire Senior Cup. While this gives the smaller teams a better chance of a trophy, I do miss the days when all the teams competed for one trophy and you could end up in Westbury on a cold December night sheltering from the rain!




As the game clashed with a Champions League semi final, there was little interest from anyone else from attending (although to be fair Andy was somewhere else in Europe!). There was more of a pre-season friendly atmosphere to be honest – no programmes available (one of the officials came round with some team sheets which was a nice gesture), the 7.30ko became a 7.45 ko and Salisbury fielded a couple of trialists in their lineup. Swindon brought a reserve team with a couple of their up and coming youth players, all hoping to be the next Lukas Jutkiewicz.




Despite the difference in league rankings, the strength and experience of the Salisbury team came through from the start. The competitive nature of Fowler and Herring saw several strong tackles flying in the first fifteen minutes and this set the tone for the evening. Salisbury were attacking towards the In-Excess stand and the ball rarely left that half of the pitch.


On 17 minutes, Fowler headed in from a Rob Sinclair corner to beat Peter Brezovan at his near post.


On 28 minutes it looked like 2.0 as Sinclair shot past Brezovan but the effort was given as offside.



Swindon took 33 minutes to have their first meaningful attempt on goal but Bittner saved a tame effort. A minute later and Salisbury broke away and made the score 2.0. Sinclair took the ball down the left side and put an inviting cross in along the six yard line, perfectly weighted to allow Griffin to run in on the far side and bury a shot past the keeper from close range.

The second half was a similar story – there was only one team in this game. Sinclair scored a deserved goal on 55 minutes, sweeping the ball into the top left corner of the goal with a well placed volley. Swindon managed a consolation goal on 61 minutes as their pacy no 9, Lloyd Macklin shot low from the edge of the box and the pace of the ball took in past Bittner at his near post. The game fizzled out after that and Salisbury were able to hang on to register their second consecutive Wiltshire Premier Shield triumph.

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