United exits Trophy amid racism claims

UNITED PLAYER BUCHANAN ALLEGEDLY THE TARGET OF SALISBURY FANS

HAYES & YEADING exited the FA Trophy at Salisbury in a thrilling cup tie that ended 4-3 to the home side, but it was marred by an incident of alleged racism directed towards United’s Elliot Buchanan from the crowd near the final whistle.

The club have issued a statement on their website, pending investigations by Salisbury FC, and in the meantime the team’s display saw a positive Paul Hughes post-match.

He said: “I’m proud, impressed and confident. These are the words I’d use to sum up how I feel after our performance.

“It took us halfway through the first half for the team to get to grips with the new personnel and for players playing in unfamiliar positions to get a good feel for what we were asking them to do.

“After this period, I was extremely impressed with how well the players adapted to what was, very much, a makeshift defence.

“The people around the club knew how badly we’d been hit with injuries this week, so we came into the game with two debutants and three players playing out of position to simply get a team onto the pitch.

“When you make that many changes all at once it is often a recipe for disaster, but we managed to get a session in on Thursday to give the lads a good idea of how we wanted to approach the game.

“Salisbury started much quicker than us and we couldn’t argue with being two down after the first 20 minutes. I did fear the worst at that moment but we managed to find our feet and, when we did, we started to dictate the play and have greater possession. If it wasn’t for some lastditch defending and some poor finishing on our part we should’ve gone into the break with at least one goal on the board. The fact we couldn’t quite get that goal meant an uphill struggle second half, but we all felt confident we could hurt them – and we did.

“Every player deserved credit as the fans can see we have a bunch of lads that never give up and want to work hard for the football club and the people in charge here. They were a credit to all of us given the circumstances and the opposition.”

United entertain Wimborne Town in the Southern Premier League South on Saturday.

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