It was a well-documented fact that Halesowen had gone 23 games since they had been beaten in League competition, and that the team that they had last lost to was Banbury in October of last year, so a Banbury win was almost on the cards at The Grove on Saturday!!!

One good omen was that United survived four corners in the opening five minutes which was an improvement on their recent defensive form when a corner seemed to signal a good scoring option for the opponents.

In fact it was United who were the first to go close in the tenth minute when Henry Eze gave the ball away to Nabil Shariff who elected to shoot from just inside the penalty area. He was unlucky as his shot beat home ‘keeper Nick Bussey easily, only to come back off the inside of the post and rebound to Marvin Martin whose full-bloodied shot was brilliantly turned round the post for a corner by Bussey.

During the early exchanges, the neutral supporter would have been forgiven for thinking that it was Banbury and not Halesowen who were the team with the long unbeaten run, such was the confidence with which United were playing, and the defence looked very secure as the home side struggled to put anything together in attack.

Banbury deservedly took the lead in the 30th minute when David Stone went on a great individual run that took him into the penalty area, and he jinked between two defenders, before firing home a fierce left-foot shot inside the right-hand corner of the net, giving Bussey no chance from 15 yards.

Banbury finished the stronger in the first-half, and continued their dominance in the second-half, and in the 65th minute they doubled their lead when Shariff won the ball five yards outside of the penalty area, and moved the ball forward before firing a right-foot shot home from 15 yards.

United denied an out-of-sorts Yeltz side any real opportunities to get back into the game as they kept the ball well, and Coleman went close to wrapping the game up in the final few minutes with a fine shot that was just a little too high.

A special mention has to be made of Ben Milner who repeated his man-of-the-match performance of two years ago here, denying the Halesowen attack throughout the game, and winning anything in the air throughout..

Team :- Scott, Redknap, Ashton, Milner, Learoyd, Haisley, Coleman, Stanbridge, Stone, Shariff, Martin. Subs. (not used) Foster, Benjamin, Hilliard, Taylor, Murrell

Attendance – 435