Terling Villa continued their 100% home record with a comfortable win over Sporting 77 at Fairstead Road.
The hosts had keeper Gavin Woolfenden to thank for a superb early save to keep the scoreline at 0-0 following a defensive lapse in allowing the ball over the top for Sporting forward to latch on to, but Woolfenden stood tall to deny the onrushing forward the opening goal of the game.
Despite the early shake, Terling's midfield started to get a foothold in the game and on 10 minutes, striker Tristan Woolfenden, back following a recent gastric virus, let off a thunderbolt from 30 yards which narrowly went over the crossbar. Minutes later, left back Steven Webb also tried his luck from range, his freekick just going past the post to extend his time without scoring to approximately 5 years and 7 months...leaving him wondering whether he would ever be able to celebrate a goal again?
Terling continued to pile on the pressure, and on half an hour it seemed apparent that it wouldn't be striker Woolfenden's day, missing a glaring chance from six yards heading over the crossbar, to add to the misery of several squandered chances previous to that. Eventually however, Terling's dominance told, Woolfenden taking the ball down by the far touchline, releasing Tom Creane to burst in the area before squaring the ball to James Alliston to open the scoring with a fairly simple finish. Further chances went amiss before the half time whistle, leaving Terling wondering how on earth it was only 1-0 at the break.
The second half started with Terling knowing that the next goal would be crucial, but sadly in typical Terling fashion, after a sloppy start to the half, Sporting 77 levelled the scores after some poor defending all round, Livermore stabbing home at the far post after Terling failed to clear the ball.
It would have been easy for heads to drop after many missed chances, but Terling continued to press and just after the hour mark, Woolfenden raced clear, rounding the keeper before being hauled down in the area...Penalty! The 40,000 crowd were baying for blood as the referee approached the keeper with cards in hand, however with a man covering on the goaline the referee deemed a yellow card appropriate, much to the dismay of the home support.
With Woolfenden seemingly having a mare in front of goal...one would have thought that it would have been prudent for him to hand the ball over to one of his team mates to take up responsibility of converting the opportunity, but Woolfenden, being the stubborn mule that he is, seemed insistant on putting his finishing demons aside and thus stepped up to the spot. With the onlooking crowd on the edge of their seats, Woolfenden resembled something of Gareth Southgate from euro'96, and conveniently blasted the ball against the upright to squander the chance. It was clear...the boy couldn't hit a cows a** with a banjo today.
Woolfenden did make amends ten minutes later however, receiving the ball on the right hand channel, he cut inside the defender before driving into the area before laying James Alliston the ball on a silver tray for him to slide into the corner of the net to give Terling the lead once more. It was the Woolfenden/Allston combination that again paid off five minutes later, Woolfenden with the through ball, Alliston with the finish to give Terling a two goal cushion.
Woolfenden was put out of his misery and replaced in the 75th minute with Alliston pushing into the more advanced centre forward role. Terling ran the clock down well and maintained posession in the closing stages to hold on for a valuable 3-1 victory to leave them in the promotion places, only 2nd to Valley Green, who are the visitors to Fairstead Road next month in a mouthwatering clash of the leagues heavyweights.
After the match, Villa goalkeeper, Gavin Woolfenden said "I thought my save early on lead us to victory. Without that save we would have lost. I am the hero, forget James Alliston, everyone in the team bar Tristan could have converted those. If I don't get MOM, I quit".
Left back Steven Webb reflected on his current baron run in front of goal by saying "look, it's not about who scores, it's about who assists the goals. Last year I must have assisted about 57 goals for Tris Woolfenden on his way to finishing leagues top scorer, so I'm not bothered about scoring, my job is to provide the chances".
Meanwhile recently disciplined midfielder, Chris Collins, has reported to have completed his induction at Slimming World, with his first weigh in due this Thursday. Collins is beliveed to have taken his fitness critism well have been seen to order a DIET coke after yesterdays game, and also managing to avoid a packet of Mccoys crisps at the same time!
