Tuesday 10 September 2002 - Twerton Park - kick off 7.45pm Dr Martens Premier Division

From the first whistle to the last Halesowen were second best in every department, in particular in their inability to deal with the strong and direct running of Frankie Bennett and Andy Williams. It was the latter who had the best chance in the opening exchanges - firing over after cutting inside his marker on 12 minutes. In this spell he was also hauled to the ground twice by Burnham - the second foul earning the full back a caution. City did receive one setback in the 17th minute when Adrian Foster limped from the action with a reoccurance of his calf injury, but his replacement Dan Cleverley was soon troubling the Yeltz backline. He was unlucky to see a goalbound shot hit the prone Gary Horgan after the midfielder, making his full debut in place of the injured Jason Drysdale, appeared to be tripped by keeper Clarke. The pressure was kept on the visitors with a series of corners. From one of these in the 32nd minute City thought they had taken the lead. Thorne's back header looked to have clearly crossed the line but the linesman disagreed and the danger was cleared. For all their dominance with the score still goalless the Yeltz were clearly still in the game. And from an error from the usually reliable Mike Trought they almost grabbed a shock lead - Quiggan's low cross flying across the face of Mark Bryant's goal. Finally, five minutes before the interval, City's pressure was rewarded. Another foul on Bennett allowed Trought to lift a free-kick into the box. Thorne won the ariel challenge and Cleverley reacted quickly to stab the ball past a leaden footed Clarke.

It was important for City to keep this pace up into the second half and to their credit this is exactly what they did, Eaton and Thorne both seeing further efforts saved by the big keeper. With Bryant still an orange-clad spectator at the other end Eaton missed another great opportunity to double City's lead after 66 minutes. Harvey's mis-hit shot found the striker in acres of space but he could only fire tamely straight at Clarke. Eaton was replaced a couple of minutes later by Paul Milsom and it was from the substitutes cross that City did score their second goal. At first his 71st minute centre appeared to be comfortably Clarke's ball but the keeper was even slower reacting than for the first goal and Williams made no mistake at the far post. The game now won City could relax and to complete the proceedings thay produced a third goal of the highest quality with 14 minutes remaining. Bennett won the ball on the edge of his own box and set off on a 70 yard run that ended with him passing inside to Cleverley. He turned neatly before squaring to Horgan who drilled a first time shot into the corner of the net. This was no less than the City no.7 deserved as on his first full game at this level he was man of the match. If Halesowen had thought the evening could get no worse they were wrong but it was entirely of their own making. First, Holmes managed to get himself booked twice within four minutes for fouls on Ellis Wilmot and Horgan and then Jones proved Town's strikers could match the rest of the team for inepitude by blasting the ball over from five yards out after a mistake by Thorne.