Aldershot Town 2 Welling United 1
15th February
Valentine's Day brought more disappointment as the Wings went down to a sixth straight league defeat.
Aldershot's Recreation Ground home is a proper football ground, so I was really looking forward to this game. With the added spice of both clubs being towards the wrong end of the table it brought some added spice of being a true 6 pointer. And things were looking up as the Wings took the game to the hosts from the very first minute and dominated the first half. Which of course meant that we went 1-0 down shortly before half time when we conceded the softest of goals. We struggled to clear a corner, which was tamely nodded into the far corner. But as the half moved into injury time the Wings drew level thanks to Dominic Vose's thunderbolt from the corner of the box that had the home keeper waving it goodbye as it went in off the underside of the bar. It was the least that we deserved.
The second half was a more even affair, but with both defences looking nervous the game was still there for the taking. And the Wings nearly went ahead when Karl Duguid's shot from distance looped over the keeper and hit the frame of the goal. And came out, of course. Cue lots of hands on heads in the away section. We had a bad feeling when Jody Brown replaced Vose with Sam Corne with under 5 minutes remaining. Vose was our best player by far, and with his departure went our best chance of going home with all 3 points. And as the game moved into injury time came the horrific mistake that condemned us to yet another defeat. With the ball bouncing around head height in the corner of our box Chris Bush's clumsy challenge on the home forward (who had his back to goal) led to the ref pointing to the spot. Yes the Shots man went down far too easily, but Bush gave him the opportunity to crumple and hit the turf as if a sniper had taken him out from the stand. And that was it, the well struck penalty seemed to go through Jonathan Henly, and we headed trying to work out how we had managed to lose.
Nuneaton away on 28th February is now huge. Lose again and our time in the Conference National could very well be coming to an end.
|