Ten Man Holwell fail to halt Basford.

It does help though, when playing high flyers such as Basford, that you keep all eleven on the pitch and Stuart Rose has to start reflecting on his concentration in matches as on Saturday he was walking back to the changing rooms inside ten minutes having been sent off for denying a scoring opportunity.

No one can fault the start by Holwell getting in the faces of Basford with a good early move involving Chapman, Keast, Stevenson back to Keast which saw the latter’s cross skimming the front of the bar before hastily cleared. It looked as though the team were competitive to give Basford a game, but on nine minutes as Walters broke into the box Rose fouled him and though it did look as though the forward would still have to go round the advancing keeper Cragg, referee Dixon seemed intimidated by the home players baying for a red card and that duly appeared. Carruthers not making any mistake with the penalty kick to put the home side one up.

So after a period of re-organisation with Bitmead moving back to centre half Holwell set about the virtually impossible task of limiting the damage.

Backs to the wall stuff it was and though Holwell continued to break when they could the task got even harder when Jay Kirkby went down after twisting on the uneven pitch and had to go off replaced by Harry Calver.

Though the visitors fought well and Basford could not get their long ball tactic to work sending balls for Carruthers and Walters to run on to it was left to Richard Cragg in the away goal to keep the score down and had it not been for several good saves from him the score at half time would have made the game totally unrecoverable.
On 40mins Cragg pulled off an unbelievable save when diving to his right he used his left hand to parry away a shot by Brady that looked to all intents a second goal.

However the score at half time was still only one nil and it was Basford that looked the more frustrated not being able to break down Holwell.

Basford went all out for it after halftime changing to the obligatory three at the back to push more into midfield and again the tide was only one way. It looked as though it was going to be something special or a fluke to beat Cragg though and on 54minutes fluke it was when a wicked deflection from a Theo Smith shot wrong footed the keeper to put Basford two nil up.

No way back for Holwell from this and on the hour the game was wrapped up when Carruthers scored after one of only a few actual pieces of flowing football from Basford, as they cut through Holwell and finished the game at three nil to maintain their 100% home record this season.
It has to be said though that the visitors did not give up and can be pleased with this spirited ten man performance for all of eighty minutes and on 75mins should have got something from the game as they were awarded a penalty when Graham Keast was pulled down after a good run into the box.

However on this occasion the normally dependable Dominic Hallows slammed his kick against the post and it was cleared.