Thame Almost Hold League Leaders (By Bob Dixon)

ON paper, top of the league Clevedon should have “blown away” Thame, who are in bottom position, in a match that should have taken place on Saturday, but was displaced by an Aylesbury match which had to take presidence.
Clevedon won, but the young Thame team played well and the match could have gone either way.

Although first half possession was fairly even, the visitors created more chances. The best chance of the first half fell to Clevedon?s Tom Jacobs who seemed to have got past goalkeeper Paul Searl before shooting, but Searl did brilliantly to recover and block Jacob’s goal-bound shot with his legs.
The Seasiders however had most of the first half chances with the Clevedon goalkeeper not really tested.

Whatever the Clevedon manager said at half time worked as they stepped up a gear, and forced three corners in the first five minutes after the restart. Thame somehow managed to prevent the visitors from scoring and started to create some chances of their own. The deadlock was broken however in the 68th minute, when a shot from Clevedon brought a superb block from the Searl. But the impressive Jack Pitcher nipped in between defenders to score from close range.
The ball was in the back of the Thame net five minutes later when Hapgood pounced on another Searl block but his effort was disallowed.

With 15 minutes to play, United pushed forward and created some good moves. John Mitchell almost equalised from a Mark Boland cross but a Clevedon defender parried his close range header. Thame pressed hard but it was Clevedon who took the three points.

Thame United 0, Clevedon Town 1

Thame United: Searl, Lane, Joyce (Boland), Rhodes, Hocking, Groves (Kitson), Moore (Caldwell-Smith), Fisher, Mitchell, Spencer, Freeman