Saunders injury mars fine away win for Reds

A NASTY injury to Ben Saunders marred Fairford Town’s 4-0 Hellenic League Premier Division win at Holmer Green on Tuesday night.

Saunders was taken to hospital with a fractured skull after coming off in the first half of the game.

After Ian Herring missed a penalty, two Ross Langworthy goals and one apiece for Christian Turner-williams and Nathan Hawkins helped Jody Bevan’s men open their league season in style

Bishop’s Cleeve were edged out 1-0 at home by title favourites Westfields.

The only goal came after eight minutes when Olly Butler drove a cross low into the Cleeve box where the ball ricocheted off a melee of players and flew into the net, Ben Miller credited with the decisive touch.

In Division One West, an Ian Sercombe hat-trick set up Cheltenham Saracens for a 4-0 win at Bourton Rovers.

Sercombe opened the scoring in the first half with Paul Holmes adding the second before Sercombe put the gloss on the result in the last 10 minutes.

Moreton Rangers put in a good performance to take a 0-0 draw at Pegasus, while Cirencester Town Development took the lead through Cavan Smith but were beaten 4-1 at Wellington.

On Saturday, Cleeve made a winning start to the league season by beating 10 man Ardley 2-0.

This was the first competitive home match for returning manager Paul Collicutt after their close 1-0 defeat at Oxhey Jets in the FA Cup.

It took some time for Cleeve to get going in attack, but they looked solid at the back.

The two sides traded chances in the first half but with few clear cut chances other than Matt Sysum curling a strong shot straight at the goalkeeper.

Lucas Price came on on the hour mark and looked lively and a few minutes later the deadlock was broken when Ieaun Crowe played the ball across to Price who had lost his man and then converted to make it 1-0.

Ardley ‘keeper Eeles then saw red for kicking out at Morgan Evans which allowed Steve Davies to smash the resulting penalty home to seal a 2-0 win.

Despite going in a goal down at half time Cheltenham Saracens ground out a 2-1 win over Wellington.

Josh Watts and Luke Hitchman scored the Saracens goal as they came from behind after Paul Jones gave Wellington the lead.

Moreton Rangers drew 1-1 with Newent Town, the Rangers goal coming from a fine Jamie Wyatt free-kick.

Cirencester Town Development scored through Max Lloyd and Harry Rule but lost 4-2 at home to Tytherington Rocks.

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