HELLENIC LEAGUE: Wootton Bassett keep the heat on the leaders (From Swindon Advertiser)

HELLENIC LEAGUE: Wootton Bassett keep the heat on the leaders

6:00am Monday 29th October 2012 in Sport By Ned Payne

WOOTTON Bassett remained three points behind Division One West leaders Brimscombe &Thrupp courtesy of a 3-1 victory at Carterton.

Matt Bown opened the scoring just before the break, before matters were levelled following a Shaun Carter own goal after the resumption.

Shaun Terry was nearly substituted after he picked up a back injury, but the striker ultimately stayed on and scored twice in the last six minutes to secure the win.

“It’s not an easy place to go, they have had some good results and were second in the league until a couple of weeks ago,” said Bassett boss Dave Turner.

“It was horrible conditions and there was a slight slope, so we thought if we made it to half-time level then we'd be happy, as we had the slope in our favour in the second half. But as it happened we went in 1-0 up.

“They had chances in the game, but we took ours and I’m certainly glad we came away with three points.

“We’ve got to play Brimscombe in a couple of weeks and all we can do is keep doing what we’re doing.

“If we keep them pressure on them at some stage we hope they will slip up, but with the games we have in hand, I suppose that’s irrelevant anyway.

“They haven’t got a match on Saturday so we could gain parity on points (if Bassett beat New College), but their goal difference is far superior."

Fairford might have have had three points deducted in the lead-up to their clash with Purton, but they immediately got them back with victory at the Red House.

The Hellenic League had intervened due to a mistake on a player's registration form prior to the season opener against Old Woodstock, leading to a three-point deduction and a £100 fine.

However, Purton bounced back with a 1-0 win over Chris Pethick's men, following Dan Bailey's second-half volleyed effort following a counter-attack.

“It was a goal that was coming, we created a lot more chances than they did,” said Fairford boss Paul Braithwaite.

“We got behind them quite a lot and got a good amount of balls into the box.

“Purton had scored 13 goals in their last two games and we needed to make sure we continued to do well in defence, and we did.”

Cricklade suffered their second league defeat in a row and took their record to 14 goals shipped in three games as they took a hammering at Tytherington.

The Rocks, who won Division One West last season, scored a flurry of goals in the lead-up to half-time on their way to a 7-0 victory.

The first goal was an own goal and then Alex Chapman, Toby Colbourne and Jack Smyth made it 4-0 at the break.

After half-time Colbourne added a couple more to complete his hat-trick and Joe White completed the rout.

Lambourn cantered to a comfortable 3-0 win over basement side Malmesbury, with an own goal midway through the first half being followed by efforts from Dan Langford and Michael Peacock in the second period.