4th September 2021
Thetford Town vs Woodbridge Town @ Mundford Road - Thetford
Thurlow Nunn Premier League (Step 5)
15:00 KO
£7 entry
Attendance - 80
Half-time score: Thetford Town 0-1 Woodbridge Town
Goals:
Woodbridge Town: McCarthy - 27'
Thetford Town: Varela - 54' (Pen)
Woodbridge Town: Sinclair - 64'
Leigh Simons took some great footage of each goal, see links below:
Final Score: Thetford Town 1-2 Woodbridge Town
Was nice to be back at my local club for what was the first Saturday home game of the season. Last weekend, Thetford had beaten Long Melford so spirits were high. On the team sheet was an interesting prospect of Visocanskis, Varela and Felgueiras leading the line, all good young talented players. Their opponents, Woodbridge Town, known as The Woodpeckers, were enjoying a decent start to the season with some big victories, beating Lakenheath 4-1 and Ely City away from home, however, when the sides last met, Thetford were able to secure an away win, so this game was bound to be closely contested.
Thetford started the game brightly, and in the 4th minute Felgueiras held up the ball and slid in Visocanskis, 1-on-1 with the keeper, but his shot was straight at Bett and parried out for a corner. The ball from the resulting corner was sent into a dangerous position, making keeper Bett rush out to punch the ball clear before a Thetford head was able to make contact with the ball. Thetford regained possession with Clarke having a two shots from outside the area, the first was blocked and the second sailed over.
After the initial burst from Thetford, Woodbridge played themselves back into the game and had 3 consecutive corners, and on the 10th minute, striker Ray headed the ball against the crossbar from one of the these.
Having weathered the flurry of corners, Thetford continued to press for the early goal and came up with a series of good chances from some well-worked offensive play. In the 12th minute, Smith put the Woodbridge defender under huge pressure and managed to deflect the clearance to Visocanskis, on the edge of the box, who struck a volleyed effort over the bar. The swift attacking play continued, and in the 13th minute, L. Bailey pinged a long ball out to Varela whose skilful play allowed him to control the ball and press forwards whilst drawing the attention of 3 defenders. Despite the pressure, he was able to slide the ball out to the onrushing Felgueiras, who managed a well struck shot just inside area, but an excellent save from Bett denied Thetford, with his block sending the ball out for a corner.
After another flurry of corners for Woodbridge, Thetford worked another good chance for the opener, a long ball from Visocanskis found Varela on the right wing, he skinned two defenders, got into the middle of the box and managed to fire off a shot, but it was slightly underpowered and comfortably saved by Bett.
Despite the best chances falling to Thetford, it was Woodbridge who scored the opener in the 27th minute. The No. 3 fired a long ball down the left wing to Ray, he controlled the ball, burst forwards towards goal, and instead of opting to shoot, laid the ball off to McCarthy, who was running in from the right, and he slid the ball home. There were some Thetford protests that the initial long ball was offside, but I was the opposite side of the pitch, therefore in no position to comment.
Just as Thetford had started the first half the strongest, Woodbridge ended the half on top, searching for a second goal before the break. In the 38th minute, some good interplay between the Woodbridge attackers allowed the No. 11 to get off a stinging strike from the edge of the box, but the ball was blocked and collected by keeper Gammon. Shortly afterwards, in the 39th minute, a good strike from McCarthy was saved by Gammon, but the ball fell into the path of the onrushing No. 11, and what looked like a certain goal was blasted into underside of the crossbar, bouncing down and out. Finally, in the 41st minute, McCarthy delivered a ball into the box, that was collected by the No. 4 with his back to goal, he managed to turn the Thetford defender to get off a good strike, but was denied by another decent save from Gammon.
Similarly to the first half, Thetford again started quickly, and immediately got to work to find the equaliser. The Woodbridge goal was besieged in the first 10 minutes with chances coming in thick-and-fast. In the 47th minute, a deflected R. Bailey shot was curling into the right-hand side of the goal, only to be saved by Bett. In the 48th minute, Felgueiras managed to get off a shot, but it was directly at the goalkeeper. In the 49th minute, a nice long ball from Clarke found Varela who fed Visocanskis in a position to shoot, but the strike went over and out.
Eventually, all of the Thetford pressure was rewarded. In the 53rd minute, Visocanskis fired the ball out to Varela on the right of the box, he popped the ball into the centre where Felgueiras was waiting, he hit the ball first time and it looked to have beaten the keeper, but the ball appeared to be handled on the floor by a Woodbridge defender who had slid in to block, and the referee immediately pointed to the spot. Varela stepped up, and keeping composed, took a short run up and calmly slotted the ball into the right-hand side netting whilst also sending keeper the wrong way, a textbook penalty, and a much deserved equaliser for Thetford.
Thetford were not here to settle for a point, and continued to play whilst they were in the ascendancy, and in the 55th minute Bailey looped a ball out to Varela on right, and as it reached him it bounced up at the perfect height to strike, and he sweetly hit the ball first time on the volley and it looked to have either gone narrowly wide of the far-post, or even hit the outside of the woodwork. Had it have gone in, it would have been a goal of the season contender for sure. In the 59th minute, R. Bailey mustered a stinging shot from the edge of the box, the keeper was able to block but not able to collect, and as he fumbled an Thetford attacker rushed in, however, Bett managed to just get their first to smother the ball.
From the hour mark, Woodbridge began to get back into the game, and in the 64th minute, striker Ray, using the outside of the boot, picked out Sinclair running down the left flank. he attacked the box, cut inside the defender to create some space and managed to hit a firm, accurate shot into the low left corner of the goal. It was a great piece of individual skill and a well taken goal, it has to be said.
Woodbridge almost immediately stretched their lead, a ball crossed in by McCarthy was just inches away from the outstretched leg of the No. 4. Thetford managed to keep their discipline and created a good chance of their own in the 68th minute, player-manager Morton made two great challenges to prevent a Woodbridge counter-attack and cut the ball out to the left wing for Visocanskis to collect, and he arced in a shot from what must have been 25 yards out, on the left wing, and the ball was heading for the top right corner but Bett just managed to get contact on the ball to concede a corner. The strike was very reminiscent of the goal he scored against Lakenheath in the season opener.
Following this, Woodbridge went up a gear for a 5 minute period, looking to put the game out-of-sight. In the 71st minute, a long direct ball caught Gammon in no-mans land, granted, two Woodbridge attackers were offside, but the one who the ball went to, Ray, was on, but with his back to goal he couldn't steer his effort on target, much to the relief of Gammon. In the 73rd minute a sublime ball was whipped in by the Woodbridge substitute No. 12, from the left wing, that curled beyond the defence to find McCarthy completely open at the far post, but his side-footed volleyed effort hit the outside of the post and out, certainly a big let off for Thetford. Shortly after, in the 74th minute, the strikers linked up, with Ray feeding McCarthy, he looked clean on for a shot on the right-hand side of the box if it were not for some brilliant backtracking and strength from Smith to outmuscle McCarthy and win the ball.
Having managed to weather the Woodbridge pressure, Thetford grew back into the game and pushed for another equaliser. Good interplay from Varela and Felgueiras, in the 83rd minute, allowed space for a strike from R. Bailey on right hand side, just outside of box, but his rising shot was narrowly wide. In the 88th minute, Woodbridge goal-scorer Sinclair managed another shot but fired wide under immense pressure from Smith.
For the final few minutes, Woodbridge managed the game well, and snuffed out the majority of the Thetford attacks, but they did get close in the 90th minute. Varela crossed the ball in, and tall substitute striker Fuller got his head on the ball, and it looked to be going in, but it was cleared away by a defender. Despite a few incredibly long throw-ins from Fuller, Woodbridge managed to see the game out, and secured the 3 points to move to an impressive 4th place in the league.
This was an excellent game of football, played in the right spirit, with both teams looking to attack at every opportunity, a great advert for non-league football. Woodbridge look to be a really decent side, certainly better than last season, and the two men upfront looked very threatening, they were large, fast and powerful, a force to be reckoned with for sure. Reflecting on Thetford Town, they put in a great performance today and left everything out there, so there can be no complaints. Had one of the strikes early in the 1st or 2nd halves gone in, they could have taken a point from the game, and although I am biased, I do think they deserved a point. The Woodpeckers are having a great season, currently one of the front runners, and Thetford gave them a really tough game, which bodes well for Thetford's season. The three pronged attacking formation of Thetford looked to be really energetic and exciting, and against lesser teams, they could have had a hatful of goals between them. Thetford have another tough game up next, Norwich United away, hopefully they are still hungover on Tuesday night after celebrating their excellent 4-1 away win against Bury Town in the FA Cup. I wish Thetford all the best, and sadly I cannot be there due to family commitments, but I will be regularly checking up on Twitter. UP THE TOWN!!
Line-Ups:
THETFORD TOWN: Frank Gammon, Sam Bond (C), Matt Morton, Nathan Clarke, Luke Bailey, Ross Bailey, Jake Mann, Elliott Smith, Bernardo Felgueiras, Artur Visocanskis, Joao Varela. SUBS: Jack Delaune, Ryan Fuller, Sonil Vasileiou, Marley Delgado, Andrew Cusack.
WOODBRIDGE TOWN: Michael Bett, Dale Hammond, Rhys Barber (C), Luke Taylor, Elliott Capel, Ryan Keeble, Taylor Southgate, Andrew Crowe, Callum Sinclair, Mark Ray, Scott McCarthy. SUBS: Matthew Bloom, Ethan Broom, Aaron Churchyard.
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