By Pete Martin
The Whites signed off their 2022/2023 league campaign with a creditable draw at home to champions Weston Super Mare. With the visitors having secured the league title, and promotion to National League South, with a midweek win against Hendon, there was very much a party atmosphere at the Ray Mac.
The celebrations from midweek may have carried on slightly too long for Weston keeper Luke Purnell as with just 3 minutes on the clock he dwelt on the ball inside his 6-yard area and allowed Devon Arnold to close him down, nick it off him and tap home to put the Whites ahead. The seagulls responded and on 8 minutes Dayle Grubb curled a free kick from 25 yards over the top of the wall, only for Mark Smith to get across well and push the ball behind for a corner. Just a minute later they had another opportunity; defender Lloyd Humphries coming forward from the back before firing high and wide from 30 yards out. There then followed a quiet period of 20 minutes or so with Weston seeing most of the ball but unable to create any clear goalscoring opportunities, before on 31 minutes, Nathaniel Williams fired a shot narrowly wide when a cross was half cleared to him on the edge of the box. 2 minutes later the best move of the match so far saw Weston’s Jacob Cane dance his way into the box only to see his shot on the turn deflected agonisingly wide of the post. The resulting corner came into the near post area and Smith needed to be very alert to stop it heading straight in; a combination of keeper and post keeping the ball at bay. At the other end with 5 minutes to go to half time, the Whites could have added a 2nd when Arnold drove into the box only to see his angled shot clip the bar and go over the top to keep it at just a 1 goal advantage.
Images by Roger Elliott
The second half took a long time to get going; neither keeper troubled in the first 25 minutes of the half with the ball spending a lot of time in the middle third of the pitch. It wasn’t until 71 minutes that there was a chance on goal and Weston converted it to draw the game level. Grubb’s in-swinging corner from the left was flicked on at the near post and James Dodd was on hand to bundle the ball home to the delight of a sizeable travelling contingent of fans. This goal sparked Weston into life and they could have gone ahead on 73 minutes; Smith doing well to beat away a fierce shot from Noah Coppin before 8 minutes later he could only watch as Grubbs shot from the edge of area was deflected narrowly wide. With the game heading into injury time the Whites had a great chance to snatch a win but Bouwe Bosma could only watch as his left-foot shot from inside the area was superbly headed off the line by Humphries to ensure the game stayed level when the ref blew the whistle to signal the end of the game and the season.
Many congratulations to Weston Super Mare on winning the league and good luck next season in the National League South.
Team: Smith, Brooks C, Sommerton, Kherbouche, Ogundega, McCreadie, Yang, Bosma, Arnold D, Goodship, Fitchett
Unused Subs: Arnold C, Roocroft, Mealing.
IP: I’d like to thank Pete Martin for his match reports this season and also thanks to Roger Elliott and Michael Berkeley for their great photos.
