A HARD-fought match saw league leaders Wychbold Juniors beating fifth- placed Malvern Town Wanderers. The match began at a fast pace with Town Wanderers dominating the first half of the game, with some outstanding build-up play by Ashley Hughes in left midfield and Simon Wikeley on the right forcing a corner.

A quick corner was taken by Hughes with the Wychbold keeper spilling the ball in the box resulting in Sean Paddock reacting the quickest and with a ferocious left-footed shot he drove home his first goal of the season into the bottom left-hand corner, leaving the keeper stranded.

Less than three minutes later, Wanderers once again caught out Wychbold on the break with some excellent build-up play and fast attacking football by Jordan Booton, Simon Wikeley and a quality through ball by Sam Griffiths saw Hughes’ screamer of a shot hitting the post.

The second-half started with a ferocious pace which gave Wychbold their first goalscoring opportunity of the game only for them to be foiled by Wanderers in-form keeper Josh King. With barely five minutes gone, Wychbold were on the attack again and with a mix-up at the back gave them their equaliser.

The fast pace of the game began to show when another defensive error gave Wychbold a 2-1 lead.

The introduction of Nathaniel Turner and Miles Lloyd-Badham gave the Wanderers some much-needed pace resulting in the hosts almost equalising. With their noses in front, Wychbold scored again through a goalkeeping error by King and with only minutes left, WanderErs were undone again.