Recap

Westfields 2 – King, Greaves

Ardley United 0

WESTFIELDS GET FIRST WIN ON THE BOARD AT HOME

Westfields recorded their first league win of the campaign at home at allpay.park on Saturday with a 2-0 victory over visiting Ardley.

The Oxfordshire side proved tough opponents and it took a hard-working display by Westfields to earn 3 valuable points to move them up the league table.

Both wingers, Sirdic Grant and Aidan Thomas, featured in early openings but their excellent crosses were cleared by the visitors’ defence and on one occasion Sirdic Grant’s cross hit the crossbar.

Westfields eventually broke the deadlock in the 25^th minute when Baidoo King seized on a hesitant visitors’ defence to nip in between the defence and the goalkeeper to stab the ball home from close range.

This gave Westfields the lift they needed and they began to spray the ball around well in a good opening 45 minutes and little was seen of the visiting attack who frequently got caught in the Westfields off-side trap.

Both Ryan Green and Kane Kahaki defended well at the heart of the Westfields defence and it came as no surprise when Westfields increased their lead shortly before half-time when neat work by Basit Umar laid on a pass for Richard Greaves and the big striker raced through to fire home Westfields’ second goal to give them a 2-0 interval lead.

After the break Ardley came more into the game and again Kahaki and Green worked well to keep the visitors at bay and on the hour Westfields had a great chance to go 3-0 ahead when Richard Greaves was put clear from an acute angle but his shot across the face of goal went inches wide.

Ardley maintained their pressure and ten minutes before the end they were awarded a penalty after Kane Kahaki was adjudged to have handled the ball.  However, Westfields’ goalkeeper Steve Sarkodi, who is becoming an expert at saving penalties, produced another brilliant save and kept out the shot from the Ardley striker from the spot to keep Westfields alive at 2-0.

Westfields maintained their hold on the game to record a good strong 2-0 home win and gain 3 valuable points.

Westfields’ next home game will be Bank Holiday Monday, 28^th December, at allpay.park, kick-off 2pm, against local rivals Bishops Cleeve from Cheltenham.

Next Saturday, 19^th December, Westfields travel away to Nottingham to meet Radford FC in the FA Vase 3^rd Round.