HEDNESFORD TOWN 0 BANBURY UNITED 0
Another disgraceful refereeing non-decision was the main talking point of this game at Keys Park on Saturday as United had to rely on the skill of Declan Benjamin to make his second penalty save of the season when he took over the gloves during the second-half.
As early as the 6th minute, Ollie Stanbridge carried the ball into the penalty area and was promptly brought down, but obviously no penalty was given to the away side so early in the game!
Five minutes later, United had another piece of bad luck when Jason Taylor reacted well to a cross to fire a fierce shot from the edge of the penalty area, over ‘keeper Stuart Brock, only to see it strike the crossbar.
During the first-half, Hednesford were guilty of some pretty awful wayward shooting, but United must take most of the credit for this by not allowing the Pitmen time on the ball, and almost all of the home side’s attacking ideas were reduced to long balls out of defence, straight up the middle, and to be fair, Ben Milner and Adam Learoyd coped with this threat fairly easily.
Banbury went close again in the 34th minute when a free-kick was played into the middle and headed out to Lewis Hilliard, wide left, and his instantaneous cross to Taylor was volleyed just too high.
The second-half continued along the same lines as the first with Hednesford struggling to carve out any decent chances against a United side that were working very hard to frustrate the play-off hopefuls, and the harder that Banbury worked, the more frustrated the Pitmen became.
The talking point of the game came in the 79th minute when Tyrone Barnett fouled Marvin Martin in the penalty area by wrapping his arm around the Banbury defenders neck, and throwing him to the ground in an incident that could be seen from all points of the ground, but to everyone’s amazement, the referee gave nothing and this left Barnett with just substitute ‘keeper Mark Scott to beat, and when Scott brought him down, the referee gave a penalty and sent Scott off, in a derisory piece of refereeing which put United down to ten men.
For the second time this season, Benjamin took over between the sticks and also for the second time this season he dived to his right and saved the poor spot-kick from Adam McGurk to keep the scoreline blank.
Banbury now had to work even harder to keep the Pitmen at bay, but this they did to rousing cheers from their travelling supporters.
Team :- Murrell (53 mins. Scott), Stanbridge, Martin, Milner, Learoyd, Haisley, Coleman, Benjamin, Hilliard (89 mins. Stone), Taylor (84 mins. Redknap), Staff. Sub. Ashton (not used)
Attendance – 508