Swindon 3rds 4 – 0 Marborough B

Swindon hit the road for their second game of the season and travelled to a sun swathed Marlborough. This was a fixture Swindon needed to win to help keep our place in this league next season. Although quietly optimistic from last week’s second half performance, there was no ignorance to the fact that Marlborough in previous meetings have been a very skilled and very physical team.

The first half got under way with both teams to start with looking relatively evenly matched. Not much was getting passed the solid Swindon back four of James Newman, Deep Singh, Dec Cullen and Dodi Azmi. The occasional though ball raced passed but only to be met by the baseline.

Swindon did begin to construct more sustained attacks on the Marlborough net and forced the stand in keeper to pull of some top saves. But eventually one ball from the torrent of shots on the Marlborough net was posted home by Phil Scarisbrick, making it 1 – 0 to the visitors and the only goal of the half.

The halftime whistle came and everyone could sense that there was something to be taken from this game and that there was something not quite the same in comparison to previous encounters between the two teams. Alex Hynes delivered his half time talk with a sense of urgency and encouraged the team to step up to another gear; we seemed to step it up a couple.

Swindon ran riot in the second half, particularly the younger persons of the team including Jordan McKenzie, Will Porter, Callum Bird and Andrew Kettlewell showing pace and skill. Relentless attacks continued and the pressure paid off with Swindon earning a short corner. Alex Hynes stood at the baseline and sent his trade mark rocket speed injection to the top of the D where “Aching Achilles” Dec Cullen struck the ball passed the stretched Marlborough keeper as far right as possible.

No to long later Swindon struck again. This time it was young Jordan McKenzie with a magical individual moment, tearing down the left side of the pitch then driving in hard at near post before slotting the ball in from an incredibly acute angle.

Not too far from the end Swindon scored their fourth and final goal of the game. Again Jordan demonstrated his pace whilst on the ball down the left wing before putting the ball across the D for Phil to place in the bottom right corner of the goal.

Marlborough kept the visitors on their toes though as they got passed the back line, leaving a one on one with Tom Kerslake. He spotted the danger though and was quick off of his line but the ball momentarily became trapped under him. Despite getting the ball out from under him and shouting “it’s there for taking,” the umpire was kind enough to award a short corner to the home team, which was saved, thanks to the steel glutes of Dodi Azmi.

A great win for the team this weekend and points which we really needed in our quest to stay in this league. Bath Buccs F next, could there be more points on the way?