Frear and Fletcher fire Bath to victory against Welling

SECOND-HALF goals from Elliott Frear and Alex Fletcher saw Bath City return to winning ways against Welling United at Twerton Park.

With manager Jerry Gill stating before the game that ‘the reset button had been hit’ it was a much improved Bath performance as they took the National League South game to Welling from the opening whistle.

Fletcher, Cody Cooke and Omar Holness all had half-chances snuffed out before Cooke’s 13th minute header was hooked off the line after Fletcher’s effort had come back off the crossbar.

The game settled down after this hectic start but it was still Bath who looked the more likely to score, Cooke seeing two further efforts kept out and Fletcher delaying his cross having got clear down the right.

Chances continued to come and go for Bath into the second half, with an unmarked Callum Wood heading wide three minutes after the restart.

On 64 minutes, Bath finally went ahead when Frear’s low shot went through a crowd of players to find the corner of the net. Welling had shown little as an attacking threat up to this point but the goal appeared to wake them up. They had the ball in the net on 77 minutes but via a hand so the strike was ruled out.

Tom Smith was denied a second for Bath by a great block with eight minutes left, before Ryan Clarke had to be at his best to turn two longrange efforts over the bar in quick succession.

On 85 minutes, a swift Bath break saw Smith pick out Fletcher and he curled a perfect shot over the despairing dive of Jack Sims to make it 2-0. Wood had to clear a shot off the line moments later and Bath were denied a first league clean sheet since August when Arthur Penny headed home five minutes into stoppage-time, but seconds later Bath could celebrate a deserved victory.