Witches foil Upwey & Broadwey (From Dorset Echo)

Witches foil Upwey & Broadwey

9:00pm Tuesday 12th March 2013 in Local Sport

WITCHAMPTON UNITED 3 UPWEY & BROADWEY 1

UPWEY & Broadwey’s seven-game winning streak in the Dorset Senior League came to a frustrating end at Witchampton United.

The Weymouth outfit have been in fine form of late but injuries, suspensions and unavailabilities left them down to the bare bones for this latest outing, and the Witches took full advantage courtesy of strikes from Lee Read, Liam Cullen and Lewis Salter.

Michael Barton, Frank Budden, Sam Purnell, Charlie May, Pete Jarvis, Richard Frost and Pete Bochonko were amongst those missing for Upwey, but they still had more than enough chances to get something from the game and probably would have had it not been for some inspired goalkeeping.

Boss Steve Reynolds told Echosport: “We had to make four changes to the 12 we took to Mere and the harsh reality is that we are beginning to get a little stretched.

“It looks like we have a big squad on paper but several of our players are also signed on with Weymouth Reserves, so when we pick up a few injuries and suspensions it can sometimes leave us extremely thin on the ground.”

He went on to add: “We only had the bare XI at Witchampton with James Baker having to play the whole 90 minutes despite having not kicked a ball since injuring knee ligaments in training.

“It was also very wet and to be honest had the game been at our place I doubt it would have been played.

“The conditions were the same for both sides though and in the first half we created a lot of chances.

“They took advantage of a loose ball from Darren Samways to make it 1-0 after five minutes before we then got back level through Phil Anderson, who pounced on a rebound on 25 minutes after their keeper had pulled off a great save to deny Ethan Devaney.

“Ethan caused them a lot of problems but their keeper was out of this world and at half-time it remained 1-1.

“We then came out and were still in the ascendancy after the break until a calamity saw us gift Witchampton the lead again.

“The ball went back to Nick Gregg and instead of hitting it first time he took a touch and ended up seeing his clearance rebound off one of their lads and into the net.

“It was a goalkeeping nightmare to be honest and although he held his hands up afterwards it ended up costing us the game.”

The Witches went on to grab a third late on but before that Upwey were denied what they felt was a certain equaliser.

Reynolds said: “Sam Nichols headed the ball down and Ethan and Charlie Kenderdine were both on the goal-line and were adamant it went a yard over the line.

“I couldn’t see it from where I was but the referee was right on the spot and unfortunately it didn’t go our way.

“Sometimes you get them and sometimes you don’t.”

The defeat has left Upwey in sixth spot but they are still only four points adrift of the top three with at least two games in hand on all of the teams above them.

Upwey: Gregg, Aston, Porteous, Anderson, Pearce, Nichols, Young, Kenderdine, Baker, Samways, Devaney. Sub not used: Ansell.