Winchester News Online
Winchester mens 1st vs Bath University 3s
Winchester 1st Team through to the next round of the Western Conference Cup after extra time drama.
A ball received just outside the box and quick turn to go along with that, a tame strike somehow managed to find its way into the bottom corner giving Bath the perfect start to the game.
There was not much else to shout about in this game right up until the last couple of minutes when Winchester managed to work the ball into the box and cut it back to Ben Bradford who took one touch to get away from the defender and the next touch was a strike that put the ball into the back of the net to take us to extra time.
Winchester carried over the momentum from that goal into the first half of extra time. Piling on the pressure Winchester found themselves inside the Bath Universities penalty area once again.
A shot, that was straight at the goalkeeper, was parried straight into the path of striker Sam Hunt who had the easiest job to do and slot the ball in from close range to give Winchester a deserved lead.
The goals did not stop there as once again Bradford, the scorer of the equaliser, muscled his way through to take a shot which was once again parried by the goalkeeper straight into the path of none other than Hunt who finished calmly picking up his second of the match and bringing an end to the first half of extra time.
The fourth and final goal and probably the best of the bunch was scored deep into the second half of extra time.
A pure bit of genius from Bradford once again was set up to take a corner and just pass it to onto the pitch for his teammates to keep in the corner and run down the clock.
However, fooling everyone on the pitch he chipped in a perfect cross to Matt Cliffe who chested the ball down by the penalty area and volleyed the ball into top corner to well and truly put the game to bed and to put Winchester through to the next round of the western conference cup.
Captain Dan Atkinson, who was sidelined for this match through injury, said: “we were abit ropey in the first half and at half time we changed some things around and built on it”.
Dan can take all the applause from this one as the changes that were made at half time ultimately won the game for Winchester by the end of the game.