SLIGHTLY BETTER

Chippenham 0 Yeltz 0

29 April 2006

It's finally all over. Having nothing to play for at the end of the season has been a strange experience - we've been challenging for promotion or relegartion for the last few years - and has been very dull.

We finished the season with a decent 0-0 draw at Chips and Ham. I think we had the better of a pretty non-descript game, with their keeper making a few decent saves. Thanks as usual to Dave for his excellent match reports - and well done for winning Fantasy Island!

How to sum up the season? We finished higher than last season with 6 points left, and we lost as many against the top 5 (two games) as we did against the bottom 4. Most worrying is the fall in average attendance in the league from 462 down to 355, and if you listen to the posts on Yeltz Talk (always a dangerous thing to do) people are putting this down to the perceived poor quality of play. Whether this is true is debatable, but we scored 10 goals less this season than in the previous two seasons. Howard's 9 goals in the league was a big disappointment after the hope we had in him before the season started.

Still, there is always next season! We've shown lots of promise at times but we need to be more consistent and obviously score more goals. We're at least good enough to get into the play-offs in this league and let's hope we can achieve that next year.

I'll be making a few changes to Yeltzland over the summer. It's been going in it's present form for 9 seasons now, and we're due for a refit. Now we have the excellent official site the need for various parts of the site has diminished, and I'm getting sick of having to take responsibilty on whether the latest idiotic comment should be allowed on the forum. What do I know? The changes will be in place by the start of next season, so expect a little disruption over the summer.

Have a jolly summer - let's hope for a decent World Cup to get us through the long sunny evenings - and on to the excitement of a new season!

Match Report from DJ

Chippenham Town: Perrin; Winter, W. Thorne, G. Thorne, Day (McEntegart 36), Harvey, Kirk, Jefferies, Gilroy (Adams 76), Rawlins, Stanley. Unused Subs: Herring, Badman, Griffin

Halesowen Town: Coleman; Pierpoint, Haywood, Preston, Knight, Skidmore (Cooper 87), N. Smith (Myers 80), Francis, Forinton (C. Smith 85), Amos, Forsdick. Unused Subs: Thompson, Johnson

Referee: C. Williams (Cheltenham) Attendance: 610 Booked: None

Halesowen signed off their mixed season with creditable draw at play-off placed Chippenham.

Remarkably, the result meant that Halesowen did not concede a single goal away at any of the top five promotion candidates and no side completed the double over the Yeltz during the season.

But a lack of goals and too many draws proved to be Halesowen's downfall throughout the season and this was displayed again at Hardenhuish Park where the visitors failed to capitalise on their superiority

Both goalkeepers were on top form and made splendid saves to keep the first half goal-less. The hosts went close in the 7th minute when Ben Kirk headed back a Nick Stanley corner for Gary Thorne to scoop over the bar from just ten yards. Steve Winter's 14th minute free-kick drifted past the post and Stanley volleyed over the bar two minutes later.

Player of the season Simon Forsdick then went in search of goals and his 20th minute shot was deflected just wide. A minute later Stuart Pierpoint found Forsdick and he composed himself before unleashing a goal-bound 20-yard shot but goalkeeper Steve Perrin made a splendid save to tip the ball away for a corner. Matt Rawlins flashed a 25th minute header wide of Halesowen's post and ten minutes later Forsdick shot over the bar again.

A minute before the interval Dean Coleman made a superb fingertip save to claw away substitute Matthew McEntegart's header following Winter's free-kick.

Halesowen went on to control the second period but found goalkeeper Perrin in excellent form. On 50 minutes James Francis broke down the left but his five yard shot was blocked by Perrin. Nick Amos headed on for Nick Smith in the 56th minute but Perrin collected his deflected shot and after 65 minutes Perrin punched away Amos' header from Nick Smith's corner.

Perrin produced another tremendous breathtaking save to deny Howard Forinton's 66th minute header from a Dave Haywood corner.

The stalemate meant the Bluebirds faced the long Bank Holiday Monday trip to face King's Lynn in the play-off semi-final.