Game 35: Salisbury City 2.3 Chippenham Town (Red Insure Cup) 11.01.11

With wet weather leading to the postponement of Laverstock's game on Saturday and Bemerton's game on Monday night, I was pleased to get to the Ray Mac to find that the Red Insure League Cup match against local rivals Salisbury and Chippenham was still on.

The two sides had met earlier in the month with Salisbury picking up a 4.0 win but the home team was significantly different for this encounter. With an eye on the FA Trophy tie with Wrexham at the weekend, Salisbury decided to put out a reserve side with three debutants, using their link with Sparsholt College. Chippenham's team was made up of more experienced players from their first team squad. This decision may have explained why the price of admission was dropped to £7 with programmes for a pound.

There was a reasonable sized crowd but once the match kicked off it felt more like watching a training session. There was a distinct lack of goal mouth action but lots of tidy passing around the pitch in the first five minutes. Chippenham had a couple of runs towards the goal, one which the Salisbury keeper reached first and one was given as offside.

It was the first time that the Salisbury back four had played together and this may have been a cause of Chippenham's first goal. In the 8th minute they won a corner on the right side. The ball was crossed in and curved towards the goal. Despite there being a player on the line and a goalkeeper in place to protect the goalmouth, all of the defenders left the ball and watched it fly into the net direct from the corner. A sloppy goal to concede.

Chippenham started to control play and won another corner in the 11th minute. This time the ball went in to the net from a header but was disallowed by the referee for a foul on the keeper. Salisbury's main tactic seemed to be to hit the ball long in the hope that hard-working Fitchett could beat the last man but this was more in hope as the passes weren't accurate. Mikey Harris, off the bench and his normal role of Assistant Manager hit a long shot wide in the 17th minute for the first attempt on goal. The Chippenham keeper was by now expecting the long ball and reacted quickly to sweep up behind his defence a couple of minutes later.

In the 27th minute Salisbury had a good shout for a penalty for holding in the area but the referee wasn't in the right place to see the offence and waved play on. A minute passed by and the ball fell to a Salisbury defender to clear. His pass out of the box wasn't accurate and fell to a Chippenham player who ran across the middle of the area before shooting wide. It seemed like it would only be a matter of time before Chippenham added to their lead when only a brave dive by the Salisbury keeper put off a Chippenham player so he headed wide. As expected, the second goal arrived in the 35th minute. Chippenham won a freekick on the left of the box, chipped it round the wall and straight onto the head of Powell who had run forward to flick the ball into the net.

Three minutes later and it was 3.0. Pryce in the Salisbury goal came rushing out off his area to try and clear a through ball only for Benson to beat him to the ball and then take it into the area before slotting the ball into the empty net before a covering defender could get back.

Salisbury made three substitutions at the start of the second half, bringing off some of the younger players to be replaced by Knight, Adelsbury and Kelly from the first team. As a result there was a lot more urgency about the Salisbury team and the pressure from Chippenham disappeared. Knight and Kelly were working the ball down the flanks and it took some good catches from the visiting keeper to keep the home strikers away from their crosses.

On the hour Harris managed to get a head on another cross and the ball looped up and just over the keeper's reach as he first jumped up then turned and jumped towards the goal line. The ball beat him on both occasions and nestled in the back of the net. There followed a few handbags as the Salisbury players tried to get the ball back while the keeper pushed them away. Chippenham were a bit rattled and were lucky not to see a player booked or sent off for a very late tackle. Adelsbury kept the keeper on his toes with a long shot that dipped over the keeper but just over the bar.

After missing a penalty shout in the first half, the referee did himself no favours by missing a blatant handball in the area in front of the home crowd. Another chance came and went in the 73rd minute when Fitchett went through one on one with the keeper after a great through ball, only to put his shot to close to the keeper as defenders caught up to him. The keeper made a good diving save on that occasion and did even better in the 80th minute to keep out a Fitchett header at the near post.

Chippenham had exploited the space at the back on a couple of occasions as Salisbury pressed forward to try and pull the game back but the shots were off target. In the 83rd minute it was Salisbury's turn to exploit space as Knight went on a great run, hurdled a sliding tackle and then hit a low cross along the 6 yard line. The ball went past the keeper, giving Kelly an open goal to aim at and he converted to make the score 2.3

A great comeback and with the crowd's hopes raised the Whites worked hard to try and snatch a draw that had seemed so unlikely at the start of the second half. Chippenham managed to clear the ball off the line in the 88th minute, saw their keeper dive in to snatch the ball away from Fitchett and then save a low shot from Casey. They then decided to take the path of least resistance and run the ball towards the corner flag at the far end to keep it away from their goal. An effective tactic that meant that the match finished in Salisbury's first home defeat of the season. Despite this, I don't think the crowd of 302 were too disappointed given the effort on display in the second half.