Chesham Finish January in Style

Chesham United finished January in style in the Pitching In Southern League Premier Division South on Tuesday night.

The Generals inflicted a 5-1 defeat on second-from-bottom Hartley Wintney and moved to within two points of second-placed Truro City in third.

However, Chesham had to come back from conceding a 20th-minute opener from Joe Morrison for The Row.

It took only 5 minutes for the visitors to respond though with Karl Oliyide the scorer.

All-square at the break, it took Chesham only 3 minutes to take the lead when Ricardo German headed home.

Any chance Hartley Wintney had of getting something from the game receded in the 77th minute when they had Jonathan Efedje sent-off for a second bookable offence.

A couple of minutes later, Matt Drage was adjudged to have shoved over Brad Clayton in the area and the striker got up to beat Marcin Brzozowksi from the resulting penalty.

In the 84th minute, Clayton bagged his second with a terrific effort past the former Hendon `keeper.

And the Generals made it a nap hand with a couple of minutes remaining with Clayton the provider this time for Jeanmal Prosper to score.

Beaconsfield Town, who beat Chesham 5-2 last weekend, were looking to move top within a point of the play-off places when they made the long trip down to Devon to take on Plymouth Parkway at Bolitho Park.

The hosts needed the points equally as badly to move away from the relegation zone, but in the end, they had to share the points in a 1-1 draw.

In front of a crowd of 508, it was Parkway who drew first blood when Dan Rooney’s strike from 20 yards found the back of loanee Kie Plumley’s net.

The Oxford United custodian made several decent saves to keep the Rams in the game – one if particular from Rio Garside was spectacular.

And he was rewarded when, with less than 3 minutes of normal time remaining, Dan Bradshaw’s cross-cum-shot was helped into the back of the net by Parkway’s own loan keeper, Adam Parkes.

Salisbury suffered a fourth successive defeat as they went down to a 3-1 defeat at the Raymond McEnhill Stadium to Gosport Borough.

And things could hardly have started worse for the Whites as they had Sam Roberts shown a straight red card in the 24th minute after finding himself as the last man.

Gosport took advantage 4 minutes before the break, although Abdulai Baggie’s goal was slightly against the run of play.

Five minutes after half-time, Salisbury equalised when Brandon Goodship calmly poked the ball home.

Dan Wooden restored Gosport’s lead on 77 minutes and then Billie Busari completed victory with a third a minute from time.