On a sunny afternoon at Hunts Copse the Reserve Team saw the visit of the inform Henley Town, who were lying in second place behind leaders Hungerford Town in the table. On paper it looked likely to be a tough game for Supermarine.

Henley came to Wiltshire with only 11 players but still hoped to take the 3 points back to Berkshire and put pressure on the leaders while at the other end of the table Supermarine wanted to get something from the game so they could get themselves off the bottom of the league table.

Within the first couple of minutes Henley must have thought this could be their lucky day, firstly James Keller got the ball on the right wing and was fouled by a late tackle only for the referee to award a free kick and the defender allowed to walk away with just a talking too. Moments later Aaron Webb found himself one on one with the Henley keeper. The keeper came off his line very quickly and looked to have taken Webb down inside the penalty area but the referee waved away the appeal.

After this first few minutes of entertainment the game settled down and Supermarine started to gain control of the game with centre midfielders of Matty Cosnett and Mike Bellinger pulling the strings and making some good passes and intelligent runs to get forward.

The first shot of the game came about after some good work in midfield found Webb upfront who laid the ball off the Keller to shoot from fully 25-yards out, only for the attempt to go just over the bar. Henley started to get into the game towards the end of the half but some good work from debutant Luke Giles and Craig Kent kept them out and make it a relative quite first half for keeper Adams. The Supermarine players made the most of everything they had as they got the ball down showed they could pass it around. We even got the full backs up the pitch and making runs into the Henley half. Henley’s only effort in the first half came after their left sided winger got the ball wide and ran into the 18-yard box only for his shot to go straight to keeper Adams.

Henley started the second half started in the way Supermarine finished the first by just getting the ball down and playing it around with some great movement from the wingers. Supermarine then started to dominate the game and made sure they was never going to let Henley leave with a victory.

Some great runs from the full back Steve Nesbitt gave the Henley defence some real problems, having to deal with the extra player running from defence gave more room to Wilkie and Webb up front and extra time to get the ball and move it around. Supermarine’s best chance of the second half came from a Cosnett corner on the left which the Henley defence failed to clear and allowed Wilkie to get the ball back into the penalty spot for Webb to have his shot headed off the line and cleared.

After this attack Supermarine consistently pressured the Henley defence and made several good chances but could not get the ball in the net. Manager Ken Turner made some changes to get fresh legs onto the pitch but even with the fresh legs Marine just could not get the goal that they fully deserved and tried everything they could think of.

Every member of the team did their job excellently and made themselves stand out. Marine’s next fixture is away at mid-table Fairford Town and the players will be up for this one and hoping to expend the unbeaten run under the new management team.

Man of the Match: Steve Nesbitt

Team: Luke Adams, John Turner, Craig Kent, Luke Giles, Steve Nesbitt, James Keller( Dave Lovejoy), Michael Bellinger, Matt Cosnett (c), Matt Povey, Ben Read (Gavin Wilkie), Aaron Webb (Andy McKinley)

Att:56