Frome through in six-goal thriller

Wednesday 12th November

Somerset Premier Cup

Clevedon Town 2-4 Frome Town

The Robins were involved in a six-goal thriller as they defeated the Western League Premier Division’s current leaders Clevedon Town by four goals to two at the Hand Stadium, progressing to the third round of the Somerset Premier Cup.

It did not take long for the Dodge to score the opener. Just three minutes in, Sam Meakes showed brilliant footwork down the right-hand side and played a beautiful ball into the centre, where Harris Feltham was waiting unmarked to finish past James Walker.

Clevedon themselves have had an excellent season so far and they were asking a few questions of Danny Greaves’ side. After ten minutes Steve Kingdon had the first shot of the night for the hosts, though his audacious effort from the edge of the area was not troubling Kyle Phillips in the Dodge net. And that was about as much as Clevedon offered in the opening 45 minutes.

It was a very controlled first half from the away side, and they soon found their second goal after a quick throw-in was taken and Meakes’ delightful lob over the goalkeeper sent all the Dodge faithful very happy going into the interval. 

Things could not have started worse for the hosts in the second half as just shy of the hour mark, they were reduced to ten men. Seb Scott received a second yellow card for an off the ball incident. Exactly what the Seasiders could not afford after being two goals down was having a man sent off.

The game looked like it was petering out for most of the second half as the Robins seemed in cruise control. That was until the last 15 minutes where the game started to liven up again, and we saw four goals scored with the full-time whistle approaching.

On 76 minutes, Tom Ovigne stepped up off the bench and got the home side back in the game with a composed finish past Phillips who came rushing out of his goal in an attempt to gather the ball.

Five minutes later, the visitors responded with their third and by far the best goal of the night. Charlie Bullock laid the ball off to Feltham on the edge of the area and it was a wonderful strike from the number 17 as it dipped up and over Walker as it clipped the crossbar on its way into the back of the net.

Being a man down seemed to enlighten a spark in the Clevedon team, as they pegged Frome back once more. Luke Newman made a massive impact off the bench and with two minutes before the 90, he went racing through on goal and slotted home past Phillips to bring his side within one goal of Frome once more.

But the mountain to climb proved to be too much in the end for the Seasiders as deep into injury time, Feltham played a perfectly weighted through ball into Harlee Vozza. The Chippenham loanee was off the bench to fire home the fourth for the Dodge to book their place into the third round of the Somerset Premier Cup, where they look to have another great run like they did last year where they finished as runners-up to Weston-super-Mare.

Report: Harry Minton