Westfields 0 Chasetown 5
Harvey World Travel Midland Alliance
At: allpay Park
Kick-off: 3-00 pm
Attendance: 91
With Stafford Rangers's at Workington postponed due to snow, I headed instead to Hereford and saw promotion-seeking Chasetown bounced back from two successive defeats with a comfortable victory at ten-man Westfields.They scored three goals in the last few minutes to increase the winning margin to one which reflected their dominance in the Hereford sunshine.
Karl Edwards and Lee Bullimore both scored twice to lift the Scholars up to fourth position in the Midland Alliance table with Nicky Harrison netting the other goal.
Chasetown should have taken the lead inside the first minute when Bullimore drilled a shot wide with just Westfield’s keeper Jon Pugh to beat. The striker also headed over and Edwards tamely fired at Pugh, who made a good diving save to keep out a low shot from Duncan Horler.
It was no surprise when the deadlock was broken on 33 minutes. Edwards got up after being felled by Pugh inside the area to convert the resulting penalty.
Scholars’ keeper Simon Bryan, who had a quiet afternoon, needed to be alert to keep his side in front. He pulled a fine diving save to turn round a header from Alec Winstone that looked to be heading for the bottom-left corner.
However, the task facing Westfields, second from bottom in the table with just three league wins all season, was made harder just before the break. Substitute Mark Davis received a straight red card for dissent.
With a numerical advantage, Chasetown doubled their lead on 53 minutes when Harrison converted a low cross from Lee Parsons.
Westfields were forced to replace their injured keeper and substitute Mark Hopkins kept out a shot from Bullimore with his boot.
As the home side became frustrated, referee Steve Castle was kept busy and added several names to his list of eight bookings which, by full time, included six from Westfields.
Two goals looked like being the winning margin until the visitors netted three more in the closing stages.
Bullimore broke clear down the left and slipped a low shot past the advancing Hopkins on 86 minutes. He then added an almost identical fourth goal in injury time.
Edwards completed the scoring moments before the final whistle with an easy tap-in after Neil Aulton’s shot rebounded off the left-hand post.
Westfields: Pugh (Hopkins, 60), Moon, Jinks, Winstone, Hunt (Griffiths, 77), Hoskins, Price (Davis, 13), Hibbard, Burton, Craddock, Beale. Unused subs: Rivett, Griffiths.
Chasetown: Bryan, Parsons, Aulton, Bytheway, Slater, Ulfig (Huckfield, 60), Egan, Harrison (Sayer, 89), Bullimore, Edwards, Horler. Unused subs: Smith, Branch, Harris.
Referee: Mr S. Castle (Wolverhampton).
