Match Report
Yate Town 1 Gosport Borough 1
Jackson 66 Caborn 15
Southern League Premier Division South
Saturday 6th September 2025
Yate Town and Gosport Borough shared the points in a game that the home side might have felt that they could have got all three points.
Yate Town manager, Darren Mullings, was forced to make a couple of changes from the side that started the FA Cup game against Westbury United on Tuesday evening, with Will Larvin starting in the place of the injured Charlie Moody and up-front Marlon Jackson starting with Chris Zebroski on the bench and Lucas Tomlinson out injured.
Gosport had an early penalty appeal for a handball, after just five minutes, but the referee rightly waved play on. Yate then applied early pressure on the Gosport goal with Rex Mannings shooting straight at Ryan Hall in the visitor’s goal and Corey Evans’ dangerous cross was well cut out by Hall.
Rex Mannings in action during the first half.
The visitors went in front on the quarter hour mark when a long throw from Ben Greenwood was half cleared and fell in space to Trevor Caborn who hammered the ball home from 8 yards to give Gosport the lead.
A Joe Guest header caused confusion in the Gosport penalty area before being cleared for a corner which came to nothing. With first half stoppage time approaching Caborn and Yate goalkeeper Aaron Sainsbury collided following a long goal kick by Hall and the Gosport goal scorer failed to appear for the second half in which Yate started to take control of the game.
Following a probing run from James Taylor and a cross from Corey Evan, Oli Jenkins’ effort was charged down by the Gosport defence and shortly afterwards Jenkins headed over. He then created a chance for himself, controlling a through ball with great skill, but just missed the target as he shot from an acute angle with the ball just clearing the crossbar.
Oli Jenkins goes close with this shot in the second half.
Yate were rewarded for their pressure, on 66 minutes, when a cross from Lloyd James was headed back across goal by Chris Zebroski and Marlon Jackson headed home to equalise (pictured below).
Gosport nearly snatched victory when a superb twisting run by Harvey Solly ended with his shot being brilliant saved by Sainsbury. Gosport had a spell of possession but did not trouble Sainsbury whilst in stoppage time, Chris Zebroski was denied by Ryan Hall, who made an excellent stop and despite Yate winning three late corners, the points were shared.
This was a good performance from Yate and not for the first time this season they didn’t quite get the result that they deserved. Their three home league games have ended in draws when two of them could so easily have been wins but Saturday’s game was a very positive move in the right direction as they look to climb the table.
The Bluebells now face Tiverton Town on Tuesday evening at the South West Interiors Stadium looking for their first win of the season.
Yate Town: Sainsbury, Taylor, Larvin (Forkuo 64), Britton, White, James, Evans (Zebroski 64), Guest, Jenkins (Grubb 56), Jackson (Cross 81), Mannings
Unused subs: Karadogan
Bookings: None
Gosport Borough: Hall, Read, Morrison, Wassmer, Tomasso, Wooden (Gunson 46), Ramos (Solley 61), Tshaka, Krasniqi (Jones 76), Greenwood, Caborn (Williams 46)
Unused subs: Fox
Bookings: Jones, Wassmer
Referee: Craig Scriven
Attendance: 410
Photographs by Aaron Norman
Yate Town Man of the Match: Rex Mannings (with Chairman Mark Thorne)
