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Chippenham

Angels return with hard-earned point

Tonbridge Angels returned from Wiltshire with a hard-earned point that maintained their unbeaten start to the season, extended their time without conceding a goal to a mightily impressive 470 minutes of regular time and in so doing they rose to third place in National League South.

On a grey afternoon at Hardenhuish Park, home of hosts Chippenham Town, manager Jay Saunders was able to welcome back Sean Shields in place of Rayan Clarke who took a place on the bench.

Tonbridge opened the game having to defend as their hosts attacked down the slope. Chippenham started with two half-hearted appeals for penalties in the opening three minutes, both turned away with referee Tom Ellsmore not showing a great deal of interest.

The Angels were dealt an early blow when, after just five minutes, the influential Ryan Hanson was forced to leave the game after suffering an injury, revealed after the game as a hamstring problem, to be replaced by Jeremy Santos. On Hanson’s substitution, Jay said: “It was a big loss because Ryan has been excellent since the start of the season playing in that slightly deeper role that really suits him, he’s a big player for us.”

After 12 minutes, Trevan Robinson had the Angels first effort of the afternoon with a shot that was deflected away for a corner, which ultimately came to nothing.

The home side were in the ascendancy in terms of possession but Toby Steward wasn’t being overly stretched at this point. A good combination between Robinson and Mo Dabre, sent the latter clear and when he was brought down in the box it was the Angels turn to claim for a penalty but once again, referee Ellsmore wasn’t impressed.

The best chance of the half fell to the hosts when Rex Mannings’ cross found its way to Harry Parsons whose first time effort was well saved by Steward.

Three substitutions and numerous stoppages brought eight minutes of added time at the end of the half and in this time Chippenham’s Luke Haines tried an audacious lob of the goalkeeper from the half-way line and the ball rattled the Angels crossbar.

Now with their turn to attack down the slope, the Angels opened up the second period much the stronger and Haines was on hand to clear from in front of his goal line following an overhead kick from Liam Vincent.

The hosts responded positively with Parsons firing over the bar before Steward was called upon to make another good save to deny Parsons following a Mannings cross.

Just past the hour, Chippenham’s goalkeeper, Will Henry, took his turn to maintain the stalemate with a superb low save to deny Shields who waltzed his way back from the byeline before shooting; quickly followed by a dipping effort from Santos that only narrowly cleared the bar.

Chippenham picked up the momentum in the closing quarter hour, but despite chances that went wide or over, Steward was not asked to make any save of note.

Jay reflected after the game when asked if he was happy with a point: Yeah, away from home, we’ll take that point. The first half we rode our luck a bit, that’s probably the worst we’ve been, taking nothing away from Chippenham who started the game really well, but we looked like it was our first long away trip of the season and we took a while to get going, losing Ryan didn’t help but we dug deep in the first half. It’s a decent point, another clean sheet, so again we look at the positives.”




Published Saturday 7th September 2024