Highworth played with a lot more composure following their Saturday defeat at the hands of Bracknell Town but Thame looked a useful side and this was always going to be a close-fought encounter.

The Worthians began by putting a lot of pressure on the Thame defence and after about a quarter of an hour, a shot from Tyler Sheppard was parried by goalkeeper, Nick Bennion for Thame. The ball was left tantalisingly bobbling about under the keeper’s body as he was left looking for it and Ritchie Saunders nipped in to score from close range, however, the ref inexplicably ruled the goal out.

Saunders had another attempt on goal and although the keeper was beaten, the ball hit the side netting.

The game was evenly balanced and a corner for Thame saw Alex Stewart rise above the Highworth defence to power home a great header which Kurtis Sharkey had no chance of stopping, to put the visitors in front.

After an hour of the game TJ Bohane rose above the Thame defensive line and headed towards goal from short range but the keeper was well placed to stop the ball, but shortly afterwards, Sean McKeon was sup-ended by two defenders in the penalty area and he got up to convert from the spot to put the Worthians back into the game.

However directly from the re-start, Thame took maximum advantage of Highworth’s sloppy defensive position and after some neat passing and a shot from the edge of the box from Aaron Rogers, they were back in front.

TJ headed the ball away cleanly from a corner but was adjudged to have interfered with Dan West and a penalty was awarded! This was in my opinion a very poor decision and justice was seen to be done when Kurtis Sharkey made a fine save.

The game was characterised by a lot of stopping and started with the official blowing up for every minor incident and frustration amongst the players resulted in seven bookings.

Highworth then applied pressure to get the equaliser but Thame hung on to take the win and the points. A draw would have been a fairer reflection of the game but that’s the way it goes sometimes!