Wealdstone 2 – 0 Whitham Town
Wealdstone
1QR2 - 0
Witham TownA relatively comfortable win today for the Stones against the potential banana skin of Witham Town. Stones started well, though the first attempt on goal was from the visitors, a header from a free kick in the first minute safely gathered by Armand in the Stones goal, and this was the only time he was called into action in the first half, as Stones kept their lower division visitors penned for the most part, into their own half.
It became a sequence of chances for Stones, as Matt Gooderick hit the post after six first time passes interchanged to create the opportunity, while Papali, Montgomery, Bamford, Christian and O’Leary were all inches wide with efforts on goal.
For all their possession in the fits half, Stones contrived to miss the target by inches or to see shots blocked, giving the visiting keeper little to save directly – far more of his first half was spent clearing back-passes and the occasional stray through ball.
The second half followed a similar pattern, stones driving forward with some neat football from the start, but it was left to a more direct input into the match to final open the scoring. Stones attacked, and the clearance fell to Graeme Montgomery midway inside the visitors half in a central position. He touched the ball forward, took two steps and drilled a venomous shot into the bottom left hand corner of the net from thirty yards to give Stones the lead on the hour.
Stones continued to press on as they looked for a second goal, this half at least forcing the visiting ‘keeper into a number of saves, many orthodox and at least one with his chin on the goal-line, O’Leary. Gooderick, Christian, Bamford, Chappell, Carbon and Papali all involved at times, before on 75 minutes Papali scored with a scissors kick from just inside the penalty area, albeit aided by a deflection that looped the ball into the air.
With the clock running down, Stones did become a little lax at the back allowing the Witham team a couple of late chances, but despite one scare the score remained a comfortable 2-0 win for the home side who now await Monday’s draw for the next round.
Wealdstone: John Armand, Jay Carbon s69 Stuart Goodall, Lee Chappell, John Christian s77 Sam Sharples, Kevin Swift, Stuart Bamford, Gavin Bamford, Matt Gooderick s69 Dave Lawrence, Chris O’Leary, Dean Papali 75 , Graeme Montgomery, 60 Subs Not Used: Fergus Moore, Stanic Rosboud