Winchester City achieved a 1-0 win against Frome Town to record their third league victory of the season and their first away from home since beating Plymouth Parkway in August and moved out of the relegation zone. the result moved them above Tiverton and out of the relegation zone. It also bought their points total of up to an average of one point per game for the first time since a defeat at the hands of Tiverton pushed them below the playoffs.
It was also Winchester's first clean sheet in the league since August.
Frome were promoted to this level of football through the playoffs having finished runners up to Wimborne Town having previously been a Southern Premier League from 2011/12 to 2018/19. They are not finding life easy at this league this season, having not won in the league since beating Gosport on the opening day of the season and they have already lost twice as many league games as they did in the whole of last season. Despite their slow start to the season, the match attracted a re which was the fourth highest attendance of the Southern League Premier Division matches played on Saturday, with their good facilities comprising a sizeable clubhouse with two bars no doubt a contributory factor in this.
Winchester had only previously played Frome five times, twice in an FA Cup tie which Winchester won after a replay and three times in the league, with Frome twice beating Winchester 2-0 at Frome and drawing 0-0 at Winchester so this represented Winchester's first ever victory at Frome and I K Hill's 62nd-minute winner represented Winchester's first ever goal against their Somerset hosts in a league game.
Winchester made one change to the starting line-up from Saturday's game at Hanwell which was enforced in view of Josh McCormick's suspension which resulted in Dan Bradshaw switching to full back and George Britton making his first start on the right side of midfield. The substitutes bench included Simba Mlambo and Luka Chalwell and three players returning from injury in Trevor Caborn, Danny King and Dom Panesar-Dower.
Frome though made a bright start to the game with in the opening minute of the game a cross from Ethan Vaughan producing a header from James Ollis which Luke Cairney did well to tip round the post for a corner and Ollis had another header from a Vaughan cross, but this time Cairney was able to save the header with relative ease.
Winchester though came more into the game with Kyle Phillips making saves from George Britton and an even better one from A Tommy Wright free kick at the expense of a corner, while Dan Jones also had a chance, but his effort was wide and from another free kick Jamie Barron's effort was not too far off target.
At the other end, Joe O'Loughlin made a good run and it took a goal-line clearance to keep his effort out, while Ullis put in a cross that no-one could get a decisive touch to, but it was still goalless at the interval.
Early in the second half Frome's Archie Ferris headed narrowly wide from a corner, but the decisive moment in the game came in the 62nd minute when Frome surrendered possession in a crucial area of the pitch, which enabled Tommy Wright to set up I K Hill to score. After going behind Frome applied a lot of pressure and with plenty of height up front were always a danger, but Winchester who were still without defenders Callum Buckley, Kieran Douglas through injury, dealt well with the home team's attacks, cutting out crosses into the box and when the home team were able to get shots on target Luke Cairney was equal to the task, saving one effort with his legs and Winchester were also dangerous on the break.
Winchester had Ollie Griggs sent off for two fellow cards late on and in the games's second half, they replaced George Britton, Dan Jones, Tommy Wright and I K Hill with Trevor Caborn, Luka Chalwell, Simba Mlambo and Danny King respectively at different stages of the last 20 minutes. However, while having had a recent habit of losing points through conceding late goals in away games, there was to be no repeat on this occasion.
Before the match for the second successive week a minute's silence was observed in conjunction with Remembrance Day, which was well respected by both teams.
Both Winchester and Frome were managed by long-serving managers with Danny Greaves having been Frome boss since 2018.
After Tuesday's Hampshire Senior Cup tie against Eversley and California Winchester are at home to Sittingbourne in the F A Trophy on Saturday.
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