REPORT I St Neots Town 1 Barwell 0

Barwell returned without any points from a sunny day in Cambridgeshire as St Neots Town won by a one goal margin. The Canaries will rue a number of missed chances that, with some luck on another day, could have seen them win by two or three. Those chances included hitting the post, the bar and having two goals disallowed for offside. Brady Hickey was out injured for the second game in a row.

Jake Whitmore and Daniel Durkin started the game after signing in the week and both looked lively early on. St Neots are not without their problems as the season enters the final stages and it was, perhaps, understandable that they started nervously. Whitmore, Nigel Julien and Henry Eze all had chances in the first three minutes and the St Neots goalkeeper did well to keep the score level. Durkin lobbed the keeper on 4 minutes but it went wide and Elliott Percival saw a shot go over the bar not long afterwards.

Jamie Towers hit the post on 23 minutes after Percival and Eliot Putman combined to create an opportunity for the target man. There was then another good chance as Putman was played in but he managed to miss the ball – probably something to do with the very bobbly pitch.
St Neots had only managed the occasional foray in to the Barwell half in the first 25 minutes and looked every bit the team in a relegation position. The travelling Barwell fans were celebrating a goal on 27 minutes when Jamie Towers headed in but it was disallowed for a hotly disputed offside.

After this disallowed goal, there were yet more chances for the away side as Durkin and Alex Tomkinson went close. On 40 minutes St Neots had their best chance when the ball broke free with their striker bearing down on the area with only Liam Castle to beat. However, the keeper came out and cleared the danger.

Straight after this, at the other end, Jamie Towers headed the ball on to the top of the crossbar. As the half time whistle went the Barwell faithful were beginning to think it was not going to be our day.

Half Time: St Neots Town 0 Barwell 0

The second half started with St Neots looking more accomplished than in the first half and on 47 minutes Liam Castle was called in to action and made a save that initially sent the ball in to the air and looping in to the goal but Castle was able to catch it at the second attempt.

Brad Gascoigne had a header cleared off the line on 51 minutes and then, on 57 minutes, Jamie Towers had another goal disallowed. Just 4 minutes later, St Neots took the lead when Gary Wharton was played in with a defence splitting pass that he tucked away to the right of Liam Castle.

Barwell pushed hard to find an equaliser but did not create the same number of chances in the last 30 minutes as they had in the previous 60. Jai Rowe, Kurtis Revan and Eddie Nisevic were all brought on to try and change the game in our favour. Jai Rowe had a couple of shots from the edge of the area that both went wide and there were a couple of late corners that, whilst causing some mayhem in the home team’s area, did not result in a goal.

The frustration for Barwell was evident as the final whistle went and no goal had been scored despite all of the chances. Barwell are next in action at home on Saturday 2nd March when Stratford Town are the visitors.

Full Time: St Neots Town 1 Barwell 0