Wright's late goal is wrong for battling Town

FOOTBALL

Basingstoke Town 2-1 Stratford Town

Evo-Stik Southern Premier

Report by Bryan Hale

STRATFORD were edged out by a combative Basingstoke side at a cold and windy Camrose Stadium on Tuesday night.

Stratford had an early opening but Eli Bako’s cross from the right was too close to Basingstoke keeper Colm Mcadden.

Gradually Basingstoke began to look the mote threatening of the two sides with Callum Bunting firing into the side netting from a narrow angle in the tenth minute and then seeing his looping header from Tim Wohlfiel’s cross clawed away by Louis Connor six minutes later.

Another Wohlfiel cross on 22 minutes was only half-cleared by Town defender Loyiso Recci with Sam Smart blazing the loose ball wildly over, but soon after Smart did better as he cut in from the right to hit a low drive which was only kept out by keeper Connor’s outstretched leg.

And it was Smart who gave Basingstoke the lead three minutes before the break. George Bennett floated over a deep cross from the left which reached Smart at the far post and he gave Connor no chance with a thunderous volley into the roof of the net.

But Sratford hit back to equalise seven minutes into the second half when Will Grocott’s clever lob into the penalty area was expertly controlled by Mike Taylor who turned past his marker and thumped it past Mcadden from eight yards out.

Lee Thomas kept Stratford level with a goal-line clearance from Sam Argent with 20 minutes to go, followed at the other end by Taylor having a close range effort deflected away before Basingstoke substitute Ben Wright secured the points in the 79th minute with a sweetly-struck 25-yard free-kick.