TIVERTON TOWN 1 (1)

A late penalty from Stephen Hughes salvaged a point from tonight's home league game against Tiverton Town with the Devon men kicking themselves after missing a raft of chances following Anthony Mason's 26th minute opener.

On a freezing cold evening at York Road both teams tore into each other from the kick off, and despite their poor away record this season it was Tiverton who had the early upper hand. They quickly induced panic in the recently solid Maidenhead defence in the opening stages Chico Ramos having to be at his best to save a deft free kick from Chris Bale in the 8th minute. Maidenhead soon recovered from this opening assault and started to play some neat football which nearly bore fruit in the 19th minute when a Dean Fenton corner on the right found its way to Errol Telemaque at the far post, his curling shot going just wide.

Despite being under pressure Tiverton continued to sally forward, counterattacking with pace through the impressive Anthony Mason. A vacuum in the Maidenhead midfield regularly led to the defence being pressed hard and when a crack appeared in the 26th minute Tiverton were quick to capitalize, Mason scoring from close range. United again responded well and were unlucky not to equalize ten minutes ahead of the interval when Fenton played Lee Newman in on the right. The blond striker unleashed a wicked shot from the edge of the area which whistled pass the goalkeeper only to cannon off the far post.

The second half saw the Devon men go all out to score a decisive second goal. The Maidenhead goal was not breached in quite fortuitous circumstances early on, one attack seeing the Tiverton attackers rampage past Ramos only to overrun the ball and allow the keeper to recover. In the 53rd minute Mason slipped the offside trap on the right and went for goal, his shot hit the post and fell to Nat Pepperell whose effort was saved by a relieved Ramos.

With half an hour left Stephen Hughes got up off the Maidenhead bench to mount a late bid for a surprise victory. The big striker’s presence clearly disconcerted the Devon defence and in the 75th minute Telemaque was bundled over in the penalty area. Hughes stepped up to take the spot kick sending the keeper the wrong way. With their tails now up the Magpies harried forward in pursuit of all three points which looked imminent with eight minutes left when Fenton found himself in the clear on the right side of the penalty area only for the ball to bobble and his shot to flash wide to leave the score line fairly even.

Magpies: Ramos, Smith, Parsons, Bunce (55 Brown De), Sterling, Behzadi, Fenton, Brown Da, Roach, Telemaque, Newman (61 Hughes). Unused subs: Hippolyte, Driver, McNamara.

Goal: Hughes 76 pen. Gate: 164. Magpie of the Match: Errol Telemaque.

Tivvy: Hutchings, Booth, Vinnicombe, Harris, Rudge, Thomas, Mason (83 Malsom), Bale, Gardner, Holloway, Pepperell. Unused subs: Skinner, Wyatt, Lammacraft.

Goal: Mason 26. Cautions: Rudge 31, Mason 50, Thomas 75, Booth 87