Report – Wealdstone 4 – 4 Chippenham Town
Wealdstone
4 - 4
Chippenham Town
Wealdstone and Chippenham Town played out a scintillating 4-4 draw at Grosvenor Vale in a game that had three red cards, one hat-trick and eight goals, two of them being overhead kicks.
Stones boss Bobby Wilkinson made just one change to the side that lost 1-0 to Hemel Hempstead Town on Thursday night with Jeffrey Monakana coming in for the injured Danny Green.
The visitors opening intensity saw them take a two goal lead inside nine minutes, Nick McCootie flicked the ball up and placed a well-struck overhead kick past Jonathan North and Andy Sandell finishing off a counter-attacking move made by his strike partner McCootie.
Glenn Wilson pulled one back just four minutes later for the hosts but Sandell struck again on 20 minutes asserting the visitors dominance with Wilson’s season looking to have ended as he limped off with a hamstring injury as a result of chasing after Sandell.
The visitors were in cruise control until just before half time when the game took a turn.
Monakana’s cross found Bradley Bubb and he hit an even better overhead kick to net past Chippenham’s 41-year old stand-in keeper Jason Matthews and moments after Dean Evans was shown a second yellow card for a foul on sub Ryan Sellers, reducing Chippenham to 10 men.
However Wealdstone’s man advantage lasted just minutes as Eddie Oshodi evened up the red cards just a minute into the second half.
But Stones were more astute and controlled in the second half and equalised through David Pratt nodding in Ryan Sellers’ inch-perfect cross against his old club.
Chippenham were reduced to nine men minutes later as Alex Ferguson was given a second yellow card after upending Monakana. Wealdstone pounced immediately by Pratt flicking in Ricky Wellard’s corner and taking the lead for the first time in the game.
On 81 minutes Sandell grabbed his hat-trick, following up Michael Jones’ parried effort by North to finalise the scoring to this crazy game.
WEALDSTONE: North, Sheppard, Okimo, Oshodi, Wilson (Sellers 22), Wellard, Monakana (O’Brien 82), Cox, Pratt, Bubb (Fitchett 70), Whichelow. Subs not used: Kearney, Olomowewe.
By Chris Woods
Listen to Manager Bobby Wilkinson’s post match interview HERE