Match Report
Hungerford Town 3 Yate Town 1
Ollis (46), McDonagh (90+2 and pen 90+6) Taylor (22)
Southern League Premier Division South
Monday 25th August 2025
Yate Town left Hungerford on Bank Holiday Monday empty handed when they deserved something from a game, where the referee was centre stage at times, on an afternoon of multiple bookings and two sending offs plus two stoppage time goals that secured all three points for the home side.
Yaste Town manager, Darren Mullings, kept the same starting eleven from Saturday’s home game against Chertsey Town, but bringing in Chris Zebroski, signed from Taunton Town, who was on the bench in place of Matt Britton.
In a quiet opening quarter of an hour, following a foul on Oli Jenkins, Charlie White’s free kick from the right came to nothing but the game bust into life after 22 minutes when Oli Jenkins put through James Taylor on the right and the full back broke free and with coolness and composure slotted the ball past Luke Cairney in the home goal to put the Bluebells in front.
James Taylor fires Yate Town in front.
Hungerford responded when Oliver Smith shot over the crossbar after the ball had been half cleared by the Yate defence. Bevan Cross, who was lively on the left, drove into the penalty area and his low shot extended Cairney.
Bevan Cross takes on a Hungerford defender.
The first booking of many came in the 36th minute when Joe Shepherd was shown yellow. Five minutes before half-time Hungerford took a quick free kick and Charlie Moody deflected the ball towards his own goal but Arron Sainsbury reacted quickly to make an excellent save to push the ball to safety. Four minutes into first-half stoppage time, Dan Demspey was booked for a foul on the edge of the Yate penalty area, but the ball was charged down from the free kick and the referee then immediately blew the whistle for half-time.
With the home side kicking down the slope and having made 2 substitutions at half time, they got off to a dream start, as within less than a minute of the restart, a move down the left saw Harry Williams’ astute pass to James Ollis, and the former Frome Town striker, riffled a shot just inside Aaron Sainsbury’s far post to level the scores from 16 yards.
Dan Dempsey made a good block from Harry Williams, when Hungerford broke on a counter attached but the bookings started to interrupt the flow of the game with 6 more bookings before the hour mark, with some strong challenges going in from the home side and a scuffle on the hour leading to 4 of these bookings, two from each side.
Hungerford’s Curtis Angel shot over from inside the Yate penalty area when well placed but after soaking up Hungerford pressure Yate Town, kicking up the slope, started to get more into the game and following a quick throw out from Aaron Sainsbury, full back James Taylor raced up the field but his cross to Bevan Cross was intercepted and the danger averted.
Chris Zebroski came on for Dayle Grubb after 76 minutes and shortly afterwards and in a hectic goalmouth scramble James Taylor had a shot cleared off the line and Zebroski’s effort hit the inside of the post before Cairney clawed the ball to safety under the bar.
Above, Chris Zebroski’s effort is clawed away by Hungerford goalkeeper Luke Cairney and below, a Hungerford defender clears this effort from James Taylor off the line.
However, just six minutes after coming on and following the referee sorting out another scuffle his attention was drawn to the linesman and after a conversation Zebroski was shown red for an off the ball incident but it appeared unclear to what the offence was.
Further substitutions and bookings took place and with the clock going it stoppage time the officials seemed to disagree about a throw in near the corner flag but the referee chose to give the throw to Hungerford and there followed a cross from the left by George Smith and substitute Conor McDonagh’s looping header up and over Sainsbury ended up in the net.
Yate, feeling really hard done by, responded and another goalmouth flurry occurred as Jack Karadogan’s shot had his effort cleared off the line and the ball was eventually ballooned over the bar by Oli Jenkins.
To rub salt in to the wounds, ex-Yate Town player Kyle Tooze, a late substitute, broke into the penalty area and as Dan Dempsey went to ground the ball struck his hand and the referee awarded a penalty to Hungerford, sent Dempsey off for a second bookable offence and McDonagh slammed the penalty home.
After a very good performance, when a draw would have been a fair result, as the Hungerford rarely troubled Aaron Sainsbury in the visitor’s goal, the Bluebells, although not getting the rewards that their play deserves and finding out that this is a very tough league to play in. Despite only having two points from five league games, and being at the bottom of the table, the gap to mid-table is small and a couple of wins will turn everything around.
The Bluebells are away to Westbury United in the First Qualifying Round of the FA Cup next Saturday before two vital home games against Gosport Borough on Saturday 6th September and Tiverton Town on Tuesday 9th September, with Gosport on four points and Tiverton with just one more point than Yate, with three points.
Yate Town: Sainsbury, Taylor, Moody, Dempsey, White, James (Karadogan 90+2), Tomlinson (Turner 85), Guest, Jenkins, Cross (Forkuo 87), Grubb (Zebroski 76)
Unused subs: Felix
Bookings: Dempsey (45+4), Moody (49), Guest (60), Jenkins (60), Turner (87)
Sent off: Zebroski (82), Dempsey (90+6)
Hungerford Town: Cairney, Angel (Hooper 74), Smith, Berry-Hargreaves, Kotwica, Williams (Tooze 74), Blackford (Medford-Smith 46), Duffus, Monks (McDonagh85), Ollis, Shepherd (Rose 46)
Unused subs: None
Bookings: Shepherd (36), Kotwica (52), Cairney (60), Rose (60), Ollis (67), Angel (67), Smith (72), Duffus (80)
Referee: Jordan Mcritchie
Attendance: 503
Yate Town Player of the Match: James Taylor.
Photographs by Aaron Norman and Jack Palmer.