After a visit to the Midlands to watch Birmingham City play, I had an extra day to spend so came to see this Hellenic League Division One clash.

It was a bit of a vested interest for me, as this club have honoured me with using this blog as a regular feature in their matchday programme and I wanted to see both the club and the programme. I wasn’t disappointed, as the 40 page colour programme was excellent and great value at £1.

The Home Guard club ground is a nice grass surface with a two storey clubhouse and bar adjacent to the pitch. There was a range of table and bench seating, which on a relatively warm evening was nice. FC Stratford played in blue shirts and shorts, with Newent Town in yellow shirts and black shorts.

The two sides were set out in the programme.

The first five minutes were scrappy as both sides took full measure of each other. Then, in the eighth minute, FC Stratford’s number ten, Ben Cox, took the ball on the left side of the Newent area and drove into the six yard box before firing home the opening goal to make it 1-0.

The match swung both ways with neither side having the ability to capitalise on good build up play. On the half hour, however, Lewis Ludford headed the ball home for FC Stratford to make it 2-0.

Immediately after the goal, an incident erupted where the Newent number 5, Finleigh Brown and 10 Cosmin Micula, were booked for a challenge and altercation involving the Stratford keeper.

Newent Town rallied and had a chance fly just wide on 40 minutes.

At the half time whistle the teams went in with the score at 2-0 to the home side.

The second half was a close battle with both sides creating chances. Then with just twenty minutes left, Newent Town went down to nine players, with one player being sent off for verbal abuse and another sin binned. This effectively ended the match as a contest, with the last twenty minutes being significant for some ferocious and sustained defending by Newent Town and FC Stratford attempting to hit through balls to their central strikers.

At the final whistle the score was fixed at 2-0. FC Stratford went up into the top six with a 100% record, whereas Newent remain in the hunt for their first points of the season.