Didcot Town 3 Cirencester 0

Southern League Challenge Cup

Cirencester Town crashed out of the Southern League Challenge Cup as they were comprehensively beaten by Didcot Town Dave Pyzer.

The Centurions made comparatively short journey to Didcot to face ‘The Railwaymen’ and the defeat ended their interest in all cup competitions for this season.

The two sides have met many times over the years but this season, Didcot are performing in the Central Division due to the re-shuffle brought about by the introduction of an extra Premier Division in the national pyramid re-structure.

Both sides took the opportunity to give squad players a game and the first half was end-to-end with a number of openings created.

On the stroke of half-time, Didcot worked the ball down their right flank before sending it towards the Cirencester six yard box where Brandon Vickery-Taverner arrived to finish.

Early in the second period, Cirencester had to make a couple of enforced changes as Ben Whitehead and Alan Griffin replaced Tommy Ouldridge and Mat Wieczorek due to injuries sustained, with Griffin taking over between the sticks.

It didn’t take long for Whitehead to come close to scoring as he struck the bar with a neat flick around the hour mark.

The home side were particularly dangerous on the counter attack and as the game entered the final five minutes, a long ball down the centre cleared the Cirencester back-line and was collected by David Murphy who showed great composure to chip the advancing Griffin.

As the 90 minutes of scheduled play was approaching, Didcot completed the scoring when another long ball reached Seth Humphries who rounded Griffin before firing inside the far left post from a narrow angle to put Cirencester to bed.

Charlie Griffin’s side return to league action this Saturday as they travel to Evesham United in the Evo-Stik Southern League Division One South.

Boss Griffin is still on the lookout for new recruits as he chases another centre half but he was pleased with the return of Alexandru Albert who played against Thatcham last Saturday.

“We’re looking and waiting to see,” said Griffin. “Alexandru Albert came back. He had played at Binfield on a dual-registration. He wanted to get back so we had a chat and he played on Saturday.”