Tuesday 17th July 2018 Basingstoke Town 1 – 1 Eastleigh Town Att 232
Basingstoke’s line-up for this match was McAdden, Stow, Nditi, Collier, Bayliss, Hollamby, Akers, Kennedy, Argent, Deadfield & Leggett.
The bench contained Orvis, Gristwood, Atkinson, Osbourne, Goater, Bunting & Burden.
Against a pretty strong Eastleigh team, Stoke started well behind the forward play of Deadfield & Argent, but didn’t create any real chances early on. Then an attack mid-way through the first half on the Eastleigh goal allowed Charlie Kennedy to smash home the opening goal. This seemed to wake Eastleigh up and they created two chances just before half-time, which were well blocked by Bayliss and a fine save by McAdden.
Eastleigh brought on striker Chris Zebroski at half-time.
The second-half started similar to the first with Stoke on the attack, with some nice one-two passing around the box. Shots by Akers, Argent and Deadfield were well save by Graham Stack the Eastleigh keeper. But Eastleigh were now coming into the game attacking down our wings, but Bayliss was at the top of his game and cleared on at least two occasions.
Stoke had another dominating 5-minute spell, but Bunting who had been brought on during a number of substitutions, failed to make the right connection on a cross and we were mean’t to play for it as Eastleigh again broke, a perfect cross into the 6-yard box found striker Ben Williamson wide-open who headed home to level the score.
Although Stoke had more possession in the final stages of the game, Eastleigh created the better chances and another fine save by McAdden kept the final score at 1 – 1.
Final Score: Basingstoke Town 1 – 1 Eastleigh Town
Final Thought’s: Another decent performance against much stronger National League opposition.