Match Report by Nick DuGard: Saturday, 26 March 2016: National League South:
Wealdstone 4 Margate 1
After an initially tense struggle between these two under pressure sides Wealdstone’s determination and battling spirit saw them through to an eventual very comfortable victory and three hugely valuable points, lifting them to 13th place in the National League South table
This defeat for Margate was, remarkably, their sixth straight reverse and alarm bells must be well and truly ringing for the Kent club.
Even so, after Stones had taken an early lead from skipper Wes Parker – smashing the ball high into the net from a Scott Davies corner, Margate came back quickly and for a period looked threatening with good pace on the counter attack.
Both sides struggled with the high, swirling winds that blew across the pitch with intermittent rain.
Margate levelled the scores on 16 minutes through the skilful Danny Green when the home defence opened up in front of him and the midfielder rifled home with some ease to worry the vast majority of the 750 Easter Saturday crowd.
Stones kept battling away with their changed line up with centre half Tom Cadmore in an unfamiliar midfield berth and the evergreen Scott McGleish recalled up front as the lone target man.
Scrappy play mid half saw ‘Gate have the edge with good running from the on loan and youthful Corie Andrews.
But as play became increasingly tense, Stones struck to take the lead once more. The lively Scott Davies played a great ball across the box to the on rushing Johnny Wright who lashed past Chris Lewington with aplomb
Stones effectively won the game with their third and best goal soon after the restart. Lewington saved twice but when the ball came out to Bradley Hudson-Odoi he made no mistake with a terrifically accurate strike for 3-1
The game was dominated by Stones for the remainder of the half and had a good penalty shout turned down when sub Jefferson Louis was brought down.
But the points were wrapped up by a looping header from Tom Hamblin at the far post from another Davies corner with 8 mins of normal time remaining.
Wealdstone: North, Urquhart, Binns, Parker, Hamblin, Godfrey (Demetriou 85) Wright, Cadmore, McGleish (Louis 74), Davies, Hudson-Odoi (Mavila 83)
Subs not used: Lucien, Smith
MoM: Scott Davies
Crowd: 750