A week is a long time in football and, following on from their 6-1 thumping at Truro last Saturday, Town produced one of their best performances of the season to win 2-1 on the artificial pitch of second placed Slough Town.
With Dan Cleverley sidelined with a worrying knee injury, Clayton Green took his place in midfield, Ollie Knight started wide on the left and Jake Jackson started at number 9 alongside Mike Bryant. Fan favourite and ‘prodigal son’ Dean Griffiths was on the bench after his transfer from Larkhall for another spell with Frome.
On the perfect artificial turf and on a cold day, the minute’s silence for the victims of the South American air crash was perfectly observed.
It was Frome who got off to a dream start in the 4th minute as a free kick from the edge of the Slough area was met by the head of captain Sam Teale, and the early goal perfectly set the scene for Frome to go on to have an excellent first half.
As Slough started to put some moves together, Frome showed that they were adept at breaking up the attacks and went close as a strong shout for a handball in the area was ignored, and George Miller had a shot well saved by Mark Scott as he followed up on the chance.
Frome continued to carve out chances as shots by Jon Davies and a good cross from Kris Miller all indicated their dominance. As the match progressed the home fans started to show their displeasure towards their own team who had only lost one match at home all season and, with Marcus Mapstone and Connor Roberts comfortably dealing with everything that Slough could throw at them, Frome were well worth their 1-0 lead at half time.
Slough came out with a lot more purpose and had a lot of early pressure, but despite several free kicks and long range shots, Kyle Phillips was never called on to make anything other than a routine save.
Much to the ire of the home supporters, Frome doubled their lead in the 67th minute as Ollie Knight side-footed the ball home from 8 yards as he arrived at the far post at exactly the right moment.
The two goal advantage only lasted for three minutes though, as Marcus Mapstone was harshly adjudged to have fouled in the area and, as James Dobson hammered the penalty low into the corner, even the excellent ‘Rebels Radio’ broadcaster said that he could see nothing wrong with the challenge.
With twenty minutes still to play, Slough could now sense a way back, though their frustration grew as they failed to open up the Frome defence while Miller and Davies went close for Frome. Dean Griffiths and Aiden Kirby replaced Jake Jackson and Mike Bryant in the 85th, and Griffiths was on the pitch long enough to pick up a yellow card and an injury that saw him substituted by Nathan Summer. It’s never boring when Deano’s on the pitch!
After 8 minutes of injury time, the referee finally blew his whistle on a very impressive performance from Frome that showed the character that is running through the side under the leadership of Josh Jeffries and his team.
Clayton Green was awarded the H&B Tyres Man of the Match for an impressive performance in midfield. Crowd: 430. Entertainment Value: 5/5.
