Truro City 0 – 2 Frome Town Tue. 24th Sept. – Calor Southern Premier League
When the going gets tough the tough get going, and this was certainly true of Frome Town in this match.
They battled poor form, lack of players and management and dug deep to record a hugely impressive 2-0 win against Truro City in deepest Cornwall.
With the geography of the Southern Premier League being what it is, Frome Town made the long trip to Truro City on a Tuesday evening as they are the third closest club to the Cornish side, even though the combined round trip comes to 324 miles and around seven hours of travelling.
With some players unable to arrange time off work, Frome were grateful to Welton Rovers for allowing the registration and release of long time Frome stalwart Jack Metcalf to go straight into the side as a central defender, and the way he played it looked as if he’d been playing at this level for a long time.
The game got off to a bright start as the 2nd minute saw Frome’s Ben Wood clean through on goal until he was flattened by a barge in the back, with the referee apparently seeing nothing untoward, and a minute later Truro had the ball in the back of the net only for it to be disallowed for an offside.
Frome moved into a really good spell after this as a great cross field ball by Mark Cooper found Ryan Laville who controlled it superbly and drilled the ball across the box, winning a corner. then Wood created a great chance as he got in behind the last defender, but his shot from a tight angle went wide of the goal.
The 16th minute saw Wood set up Will Agbo with a ball back from edge of area, but the former Yeovil winger’s effort went just over the angle of the post and bar with former Robin Ollie Chenowith helpless.
Truro came back however, and Cooper did well to turn a cross behind for a corner, then Darren Chitty did well to save low down from a long range effort from another former Robin Jordan Copp. On the half hour, Chitty again proved what a fine keeper he is with a superb save to deny Seb Brookfield tipping over from distance, and Truro probably had the best of the few minutes before the break, as a 25 yard shot from Copp flew past the post and then Jon Eddy put the ball just wide on the stroke of half time.
With the score 0-0 at half time, and Jack Metcalf having settled into role with ease, the second half started in the best possible way for Frome as Wood was hauled down in the box by Chenoweth, with the referee only showing a yellow to the keeper when a red must have been a distinct possibility. Laville stepped up and confidently sent Chenoweth the wrong way for his first goal for Frome from Frome’s first penalty of the season.
Stung by the goal, Truro struck back and Chitty performed at almost impossible levels as he made three fantastic stops when it seemed certain that Truro would score, and when the dust had settled he needed lengthy treatment after the last brave stop. On the hour, Frome carved out another great chance as Laville rolled the ball to Ledgister, whose great through ball to Cooper saw the left back shoot straight at Chenoweth, but after another couple of great Chitty saves and a moment of comedy when the ball hit the sprinkler system and soaked the Frome bench, Cooper finally had his well deserved moment as good play from Bryan Smith and Aaron Ledgister led to him shooting under the home keeper to make the score 2-0 to Frome.
Chitty brought off another great save in the 80th minute to push away a Matt Andrew shot from distance, Cooper received an unpunished assault that laid him out for a while. but the team battled well to preserve their advantage, and, all things considered, this was one massively impressive performance, which hopefully will lead to a good run of form in the league.
The H&B Tyres Man of the Man Award was awarded to Mark Cooper, though, on a night like this there were 11 heroes out there, and any one of them could have won the award.
Frome Scorers: Laville (47p), Cooper (78). Truro Scorers: None. Crowd: 244. Star Man: Mark Cooper. Entertainment Value: 4.
