Church Prevent Eagles Soaring - Again

Church survived a difficult start to this game, but stuck to the task and class finally told with a three goal haul that equalled the FA Trophy scoreline of a few weeks ago.

Bedford had enjoyed a significant victory just three days ago, putting FA Cup heroes Coalville Town to the sword, whilst Church struggled to repeat their FA Cup form in a dour 1-1 draw at Kings Langley. But it turned out to be much more productive outing for the Lye Meadow side once they had found their feet in this tricky encounter.

There were three changes to the weekend line up with Harry Williams, Brad Burton and Tyrell Hamilton coming in to replace Jamie Willets, Ethan Sephton and Danny Waldron. Willets and Waldron were on the bench, and would both play a part in the evening’s win, whilst Sephton sat out the game after picking up a knock at the weekend.

Alvechurch: Jezeph, Cassidy, Burton, Neto-Teixeira, Williams, Carter, Abbey, Edge, Brown (Willets 70), Concannon (Woolley 90+3), Hamilton (Waldron 63) subs not used: Behan, Angelides

Bedford Town : Street, Keeble, Warburton, Dreyer, Phelan, Alban-Jones, Tomlinson (Sanders 57), Camara, Soyemi-Ololade (Butterworth 87), Richardson (Halliday 87), Jarvis subs not used: Mackail-Smith, Donnelly

Bedford had a good chance after just 4 minutes when Dan Jarvis took a shot from the right wing which hit the post. The ball rolled out to Afolabi Soyemi-Ololade whose shot was cleared off the line and out for a corner. It’s all Bedford in an attacking sense, and it was to be the quarter hour mark before Church had their first clear opening when Hamilton turns on a sixpence on the edge of the box, and fires off a shot that flew just wide of the angle of the goal.
A wonder save by Jezeph on 27 kept the scoreline blank when after the ball was dinked into the heart of the Church defence a snap shot from Alban-Jones was superbly turned aside by the Church number one when all indications were that the ball had beaten him.

Steele saved well form Hamilton after Burton had done well to feed the ball into the danger area on 42 minutes, with the striker’s close range shot forcing a good blocking save from the Bedford keeper.

But in hindsight it was merely delaying the inevitable.

Having survived a couple of scares, Church had come alive in the closing stages of the first half.
The goal, when it came, was a bit scruffy, with a ball across the face of the goal by Burton, half dealt with by keeper Steele, but as it spilled free, Leo Brown was on hand to stab the ball in from close range.

If the goal was somewhat against the run of play, Church used it as a springboard to begin to exert themselves on the hosts.

And Church found another clear opening before the half was out as a Cassidy cross from the by-line found Edge who steered a shot just over from eighteen yards out.

Half Time : Bedford Town 0 Alvechurch 1

The second half was much better fare, and we saw much more of the Church that we had recently begun to know and love.

Space was opening up in front of the Bedford back four, and Jed Abbey capitalised on 55 minutes when he latched onto a ball that had been cleverly flicked back by Brown, and picked his spot low in the bottom right hand corner, stroking the ball in from sixteen yards, out of the reach of Steele.

The busy Danny Waldron put the icing on the cake with a stoppage time goal.
An exquisite, and cool-headed finish after being put through by a defence splitting ball from Edge, the striker bided his time before deftly lifting the ball over the advancing Steele and into the empty net.

It took Church some time to get going, but after absorbing the changes from the weekend line-up, and integrating the in-match substitutions well, it turned out to be a good all-round team performance, and a welcome three points after the distractions of three consecutive cup games.