West Midland Regional League

Premier Division

Tuesday 1st May 2018

Tividale 3-0 Wellington Amateurs

Second half show to much for Ams

We can now just about see the finishing line in this long hard and hopefully rewarding season. After this result and the 10 goal swing against Malvern Town. One more win or three points from three games will see us as runners up.

With Joe Lawley, Nathan Jones and Liam Wilkinson still unavailable, the Boss was now getting limited with the changes he could make to his line up. Back into the starting line up came Karl Gardner and Tyree Clarke replacing Dan Bryson and Dan Smith.

It was a surprisingly high tempo start from both sides with the visitors showing that even with their lowly position they were prepared to “have a go” and were not going to roll over.

The opening 15 minutes were played at an express pace but neither side could really get into any sort of rhythm as the play was littered with wayward passes. Tividale did produce the first piece of quality when Demetri Brown turned in the box but fired his shot just wide. A minute later and the impressive Liam Armstrong saw his shot deflect off a Tividale body and go out for a corner.

The next 20 minutes was in the main a battle of attrition, with the ball just stuck in the middle of the park and neither team could create anything of note until the 35th minute when Wellington’s Charlie Swingwood’s cross into the box found Armstrong but again his shot could not find the target.

Tividale did end the half the stronger and had two great chances to open the scoring. First on 43 minutes Brown was denied by a brilliant last ditch tackle from full back Matt Dean and a minute later Harvey Walker drilled a shot that Wellington’s keeper Chris Thomas beat away.

Half-Time:-Tividale 0-0 Wellington Amateurs

Tividale started the second half on the front foot and on 49 minutes Bradley Welding stormed down the right and his shot was deflected for a corner.

On 51 minutes Tividale finally broke the deadlock and it took a piece of wing magic to create it. Darragh Bustin had been giving the visitors right side all sorts of problems throughout the game and when right midfielder Jake Lloyd won the ball from Bustin just in his half, he did not expect the wing back to track him down, win the ball back and completely skin both Lloyd and full back Dean before cutting the ball back from the by-line for Brown to sweep home.

Wellington to their credit came storming back and on 53 minutes Dean had an effort that seemed to rear up on Cheshire and he pushed it wide. Bustin then received a neat through ball from Curtis Cocking but Thomas was equal to his shot.

As the game moved into the final 20 minutes the pace of the game was now beginning to tell on the visitors and their defence was pretty much AWOL in the 71st minutes as Brown was left one on one with Thomas and he slid the ball past him.

A minute later and it was 3-0 as again Thomas’s defence were struggling to get back as substitute Chris Bladen was left unmarked and he calmly clipped the ball past the hapless keeper and into the back of the net.

Tividale had an injury scare at the end of the game when striker Tyree Clarke went down under a late tackle and seemed to have caused some damage to his knee but although he was carried from the field he was able to limp out of the changing room.

Full-Time:-Tividale 3-0 Wellington Amateurs

Tividale:- Ryan Cheshire, 2.Darragh Bustin, 3.Bradley Welding (16. Elliott Hartley 72), 4.Ben Birch, 5.Freddie Watts, 6. Karl Gardner (14. Tom Hurdman 76), 7.Harvey Walker (15. Chris Bladen 66) , 8.Curtis Cocking, 9.Demetri Brown, 10.Tyree Clarke , 11.Lee Smith.

Unused Subs:-.12.Dan Smith, 13.Lewis Handley