Frampton Vets Make it 2 Wins from 2!

They made hard work of it, but in the end, the just about did enough to secure victory.

With a few players already missing from the first game, Joe Price and Dan Cook made themselves available to make their veterans debut.

Frampton should've traveled over the bridge with a squad of 14 players, but Steve Smith pulled out on the Saturday night due to be told by the wife that he wasn't allowed to play 2 games of football in one weekend (or something about having a chocolate hamstring?!) and Carl "Captain" Tomlin cried off 45 minutes before kick off due to being unable to handle a few quiet shandies on the Saturday night.

So, with a much depleted squad, Frampton made the journey over the bridge to take on a Cardiff Northern OB's side who were yet to pick up a victory in their first 3 outings this season! Frampton took nothing for granted though and started the game strongly.

Frampton dominated possession throughout the first half, but with only 3 at the back, were often vulnerable at the back. However, with the now trademark "Beakey Volley", the lines were cleared with relative ease. That made the job of attacking that much easier! In fact, midway through the first half, Frampton took the lead. Martyn Tozer slid a delightful through ball to Ben Mills who made a darting run form the right wing and coolly slotted the ball home.

With confidence brimming, Frampton stepped on the gas and soon found themselves 2 up! After some neat play in the midfield, Joe Price made break into the box, before squaring the ball to James Shepherd to smash the ball home past a helpless goalkeeper.

Then came a moment of controversy in the game...and I;m not referring to the handbags between Tozer and Emmanuel Adebayor on the Cardiff side! Sheps made a darting run across the box and just before he was about to pull the trigger he was taken clean out by a Cardiff centre half! Sheps knew it was a pen, the centre half knew it was a pen, the keeper knew it was a pen, every player on the pitch knew it was a pen, everyone in Newport knew it was a pen....except for the referee! Maybe his view of the incident was blocked.

That didn't deter Frampton as Tozer, now fired up from his handbags incident, found his way in to the box to fire Frampton 3-0 up, before claiming a sublime 4 yard tap in at the near post, despite being accused of being offside!

4-0 at half time and Frampton were cruising.

However, the second half was a different story. With Darren Collett picking up an injury and Joe Price and Dan Cook still battling on through long term injuries, Frampton started to tire. Whilst Frampton were tiring, Adebayor and Louis Saha in the Cardiff side were only getting quicker and stronger! Is was the strength of Adebayor that gave Cardiff their first sniff of getting back into the game. Mady chased him to the byline before deciding he had enough of all this running and chasing, so just pushed Adebayor out of the way! Unfortunately, on this occasion ,the referee did have good visibility of it and gave the penalty. The resulting penalty was put right into the top corner - right in the stanchion - giving the despairing Nick Talbot absolutely no chance, despite very nearly getting his finger tips to it!

That goal gave Cardiff and bit of confidence and they went on to scoring a further 2 goals to set up a tense last 10 minutes of the game! Their first came courtesy of a Mike Beake dummy, allowing their striker to run in unopposed and smash the ball home from 8 yards! Their second was a delightful volley after a deep cross was put in, a shout from Mike Beake of "it's going no-where", before the Andros Townsend for Cardiff volleyed the ball home with aplomb!

The last 10 minutes saw Frampton try all sorts of tricks to run the time down. From kicking the ball out of play and into the Severn River, kicking the ball so hard that the sole of the boot came off and going down for 5 minutes like you're dying after being elbowed the face (fair play, claret was spilt!). It even took an outstanding save in the last minute from Nick Talbot to keep the score at 4-3 and meant that Frampton took all 3 points!

Despite a couple of unsavoury moments from a couple of the Cardiff lads, it was a cracking game of football for the neutral!

Frampton now move on to face Filton High Vets on 17th December - will they make it P3, W3?! We shall soon see!