Portishead Town 5 SC Inkberrow 1
By Matt Gillett / 1st October
Portishead Town produced some scintillating football as they returned to league action with a stonking 5-1 win over Sporting Club Inkberrow.
A first game in ten days and Portishead were out of the blocks like a coiled spring. If you’re after a fast start how does an opening minute penalty grab you? When the ball dropped after a bout of head tennis in midfield, Jack Thorne threaded a pass to Kyle Egan advancing into the box. As Sporting’s diving keeper Gabriel Bajrami cleaned out Egan the referee pointed to the spot. Posset’s captain got up to smash home.
Portishead made the pitch big as they fizzed the ball around. Egan not only dictated much of the play but, like his teammates, snapped into tackles. Energy abounded, Mitch Osmond for example, must have covered every blade of artificial grass.
On 13 minutes Lucas Vowles won possession up high, linked with Thorne and dinked the ball over Bajrami for 2-0. The rotation of Vowles, Thorne and Jay Murray in attack was a key feature with Thorne always happy to take on defenders with pace and skill. In the 33rd minute from Osmond’s free-kick over the wall Bajrami parried and Egan reacted quickest to make it 3-0.
Sporting struggled to deal with the intense pressure in their own final third with Posset hunting in packs, and Murray and Thorne came close. Any threat from the visitors was snuffed out as Jamie Adams, Aaron Robbins, Hamish Hurst, Ollie Woodhouse and keeper Ryan Thacker all made timely interventions.
Sean Keet entered the fray for the second half in place of Tom Llewellyn as Adams moved into midfield. Sporting’s keeper rushed out to clear a lightning Portishead break on 50 minutes, the ball broke to Egan who lobbed it long and accurately into the net. In the 57th minute Egan expertly released Murray on the left, his cross shot was well saved by Bajrami only for Thorne to net the rebound for 5-0.
Although the game was clearly lost Sporting kept going and enjoyed their best spell in the last half hour. But if Posset no longer had an iron grip on the midfield, they showed other qualities: ferociously defending, blocking and heading clear. Thacker made a fine 76th minute double save, first from a long shot and then blocking the follow-up.
Further substitutions gave pitch time to Jake Packham, Freddie King and Dean Griffiths. A sweeping 82nd minute move involving Adams, King and Thorne ended with Griffiths inches from another goal. Instead Sporting broke and Louis Crook thumped home the consolation goal. A fine night’s work by Portishead makes it 12 out of 15 points so far heading into Saturday’s local derby at Bristol Manor Farm.
Thanks to Ollie Riddoch for the photos.
Ella Vowles