Southern Premier looks set for a thrilling finale
CHIPPENHAM TOWN celebrated the league title after Leamington’s Friday-night slip-up, but saw their 23game unbeaten run brought to a halt yesterday as St Neots sought to avoid dropping into the relegation zone.
Despite the result, Chippenham manager Mark Collier couldn’t be happier: “The championship was a team effort, both on and off the pitch. All the hard work had been done throughout the season.”
Vice chairman John Applegate said that he was “still in shock”, while general manager Derek Crisp hoped that he “might finally get a good night’s sleep after looking at all the permutations that could have seen Chippenham miss out on automatic promotion”.
The home side went close in the opening moments, Jake Andrews seeing his effort cleared off the line.
But it was the visitors who struck first. Jevani Brown put them in front on ten minutes, chipping the advancing keeper Darren Chitty.
They continued to have the lion’s share of play, Lee Clarke with efforts on and off target.
Over half an hour had been played before Chippenham came into the match. David Pratt was flattened just outside the box and the free-kick saw a goalmouth scramble that St Neots’ defence was happy to clear.
Chippenham were almost caught out just before the break. Harry Norman struck at an open goal, only to see it fly wide.
The second period had only just begun when a clash between Brown and Chitty left the home keeper lying injured.
However, Cheltenham referee Steven Oake deemed it to be a foul and gave a penalty from which Brown doubled his tally.
Chippenham started to put some play together and headers from Pratt and Matt Smith just cleared the bar.
Smith then flashed a shot across the face of goal without success.
With Chippenham pushing forward, they were at times over-extended, and only a super save from Chitty denied Brown his hat-trick.
Chippenham’s pressure told and Alex Ferguson pulled a goal back for the home side on 70 minutes.
A super save by keeper Alex Archer prevented Pratt gaining parity while his next two efforts were cleared off the line as the champions just failed to level.