Spangels 4 Orange Tree 1

BNESL Division Three

For the first time this season Spangels completely dominated a game from start to finish, never allowing their opponents a sniff as they moved steadily towards the Division Three Cup Final on 2nd April.

The only changes from last weeks defeat of Chelmer Village Athletic saw Sayer move from right-back to left midfield, to replace the absent Hagan, and Gary Livermore start for only the third time this season in his place.

Spangels attacked Orange Tree relentlessly for the first 15 minutes and it was a combination of bad luck and bad finishing that prevented the home side taking a early lead. Numourous times Spangels broke into good attacking positions, particularly on the right where Putt saw a lot of the ball early on. However, Whiteman, Crow and Rivett were all guilty of missing goal scoring opportunities.

After 20 minutes, the deadlock was broken following an excellent through ball by Rivett which Whiteman latched onto and buried into the corner of the net. Tivey was unlucky seconds later to see a 30 yard effort clip the outside of the post and go right across the goal-line before being cleared.

Centre-back Pritchard then put Spangels two-up, with his second goal in two games, having surged on to an counter-attacking ball from Putt, he then finished with aplomb into the roof of the Orange net from 20 yards.

Spangels were really playing some fantastic stuff at this stage and found mutli-player passing moves an ease as further goals were sought. Their third and Whiteman's second saw at least six home players linking up before a Putt ball from the right was tucked away.

Complacancy in the second half was the danger with Spangels three goals to the good, especially following the reverse administered by Spangels the previous week. Orange, though, could not find a way through the Spangels defence and although the attacking play was not as fluent as the first half, the home side still looked dangerous.

Rivett saw the wood-work prevent him from adding to Spangels goal tally twice in the second half. Gary Livermore added Spangels fourth from close range after another corner caused havoc in Orange's box.

Orange's only reply came with two minutes left and saw Ramsay beaten all ends up from a 20 yard top-corner thunderbolt from a cleared corner.

This was by far Spangels most comprehensive victory of the season and was exactly the tonic required leading into the big match in three weeks time.


Team : Ramsay, G.Livermore (1), Wilson, Pritchard (1), Theobald (C), Tivey (Collis), Rivett, Sayer, Putt, Crow (Hart), Whiteman (2) (Todd).

Spangels MOM : Gary Livermore