Sat. 23rd Feb. Evo-Stik Southern Premier Frome Town 0 Chesham Utd 2
A penalty early in the second half and a clinching goal in the 8th minute of stoppage time, consigned Frome to a damaging 2-0 home defeat by Chesham Utd and a further period in the relegation zone.
With Frome on 30 points and second from bottom, this home match against Chesham Utd, a side that had started the season badly, but on a decent run at the moment and sitting six points above Frome took on a huge significance, and with Frome seemingly able to win every second match, perhaps they could pinch this one after losing to Poole in their last league match? New signing from Melksham, Brad Norris, started the match at centre forward and could perhaps inject some much-needed impetus up front?
On a lovely day, the match started with Frome playing a back five and with Ollie Knowles in the “hole” just in front of the defence, the plan was obviously to give little away at the back, and despite Chesham generally looking the livelier, it seemed to be working, with much huffing and puffing in midfield, but neither side really able to get a grip on the game.
Brad Norris had a long range shot in the 24th saved by Ben Goode, but then Sam Teale pulled off a great sliding block tackle to deflect a shot from the dangerous looking Chesham number 10, Ryan Blake, who seemed one of the few players on the pitch confident enough to run at players with the ball.
From the resulting corner, Chesham’s Luke Henegan produced an “air shot” that could well have caused problems had he connected, but apart from those few moments, the half was a pretty sterile affair, with Frome again showing that despite their fairly solid defence, their issue all season has been lack of width and penetration from midfield.
After Rob Brown had saved an early Chesham effort in the second half, the visitors took the lead in the 50th as Blake went on a run that took him past a couple of tackles into the Frome box, only for a fairly innocuous-looking Marcus Mapstone challenge to be penalised as the striker went to ground, allowing Dave Pearce to score with ease from the spot.
With Mapstone having to be substituted a few minutes later due to an injury from a late challenge, the match started to get a little feisty, but neither side were really able to create any structure in the match, and despite Frome making substitutions, it was hard to see where the equaliser was going to come from, as Chesham defended with ease, and Frome only looked capable when the defenders started coming forward, inevitably leaving dangerous holes at the back.
They did have a chance to square the match in the 92nd minute as the ball broke to substitute Ryan Bath, but his side footed shot went past the far post, and in the 8th minute of injury time, Chesham sealed the match as Blake had acres of space on the right to look up and curl the perfect cross onto the head of Eoin Casey, who had no problems boring his header past Rob Brown to the delight of the travelling fans.
Frome’s captain Sam Teale was awarded the Man of the Match award by match sponsors John Scott Builders. Crowd: 176. Entertainment Value: 2/5
