FOLLOWING THE SALTMEN

Chipping Sodbury 1-6 Droitwich Spa

Hellenic League Division One. 1st March 2025

Today was always likely to be pivotal to Spa’s hopes of promotion to Step 5. With four of their closest rivals in action against other top sides, the trip to Chipping Sodbury offered Spa the opportunity to capitalise while those rivals took points off each other. Not that victory for the Saltmen was a given. The “Sods” can give anyone a game and came close to getting something from their trip to Kingys earlier in the season.

Chipping Sodbury is one of those quintessentially pretty Cotswold towns. The type of place that overseas visitors must think the whole of England looks like. All pale golden Cotswold stone. Even the Citroen dealers up the road is built in keeping with the local aesthetic. So after a short drive down from our own oasis of beauty in mid-Worcestershire it would have been churlish not to sample some of the local hospitality. A five minute walk from the football club takes you to the historic high street, lined with hostelries enticing the weary traveller to sample their fayre. We chose the historic George Hotel, a large but friendly pub with a large open area to the rear. Mind you, when you are charging £6 for a pint, you can afford to be friendly.

Having done our bit for cultural relations, we walked back to the football club, which was just as friendly and much more reasonably priced!

The game started well for but it soon became clear that the playing surface was not as good as it initially appeared. Clearly, the poor weather has taken its toll and the pitch created plenty of opportunities for players to look silly due to its inconsistent bounces and bobbles. The Saltmen quickly got to grips with the conditions and strong play from Alex Dugmore nearly paid immediate dividends but his effort was deflected narrowly wide. The travelling Spa faithful didn’t have to wait long though. Josh Hurdman got behind the Sods’ defence to collect a flick on from Dugmore. He stayed calm and slotted the ball beyond the reach of Maggs in the Sods goal. A few minutes later Josh was foiled by Maggs who scrambled away his goalbound strike. Hurdman would not be bowed and on 13 minutes, he dispossessed Maggs who had been given a hospital pass by a teammate who really should have done better. Josh took the ball of the unlucky keeper and dispatched the ball into the open goal giving Spa a two goal lead.

While Spa dominated the half, Chipping also created chances, but apart from collecting a few crosses, Spa keeper Dom Rogerson was largely a spectator. At the other end, Maggs was again called into action midway through the half and got down smartly to thwart Ben Tilbury in a one on one chance for the Spa man. Injury of the day occurred in the 26th minute when goal machine Dugmore rose to challenge for the ball, only to catch a loose arm from his opponent which managed to take one of Duggers’ front teeth. Fortunately the tooth was recovered – but more on that later. The impromptu extraction didn’t distract the prolific Droitwich icon. His persistence on the half hour put Josh Hurdman clear on the right side. He then put a great cross into the near post area where Ben Tilbury neatly headed the ball home giving our heroes a 3-0 lead which they took to the half time break.

The second half began with Droitwich firmly in control. Chances for Dugmore, Nathan Binner and Perry Moss came and went then on 58 minutes the dentally deprived Dugmore met a near post cross and gave Maggs no chance and it was 4-0.

On 62 minutes, Jack Brighton put a great cross into the box which Duggers converted classily.

A minute later Spa were awarded a penalty. In clear breach of club policy, Josh Hurdman had been allowed to remain on the field despite having already scored twice. With regular penalty taker Nathan Binner just replaced, Josh took the ball and efficiently dispatched the spot kick for a 6-0 scoreline and completed a deserved hat trick.

The hosts grabbed a consolation goal after 83 minutes when Towler struck an excellent free kick into the top corner. This concluded the scoring.

The players left the field to a massive ovation from the Spa support further buoyed by news from Abingdon and Redditch. We made our way to the clubhouse only to be confronted by the sight of Droitwich physio attempting to relocate Duggers’ errant tooth, sadly without much success.

It was a great performance from every one of the players. Collectively, they look to have returned to early season form. Particularly impressive were Alex Dugmore, hat trick Hurdman and Jack Brighton but the pick of the bunch and FTS man of the match goes to Cory Rudd whose overall work rate and neat distribution were key to the win.

It’s over to Wellington next, on Tuesday evening.

See you there!

Cheers

Steve