Shepshed Dynamo 2 Willenhall Town 3

Twice Willenhall Town battled from behind to register their first victory in the Unibond Division one over old rivals Shepshed, but this game was certainly one to forget for Dynamo’s keeper Richard Keeling who was badly at fault for all three goals.

Willenhall Town: Vaughan, Colwell, Whitcombe, Slater, Thomas, Myers, Smith, Swann, Tyrell (Quilt) (Jackson), Edwards, Colcombe (Curran).

After a pretty even opening, the home side took the lead in the 13^th minute with a simply crafted goal. The Red’s defence was torn apart by a through ball and Chris Henson strode forward to beat Nathan Vaughan with an angled shot that cannoned in off the inside of the post.

Vaughan was to play a major part in Willenhall’s equaliser as he launched an extremely impressive long clearance that had the Dynamo defence backtracking and Justin Tyrell nipped in to judge the bounce perfectly, unlike keeper Keeling who could only watch in dismay as he was caught standing whilst the big striker’s perfectly executed header looped over him in the 24^th minute.

However, the Red’s found themselves trailing once again four minutes later. A free kick on the left was whipped in towards the far post and some slack marking allowed Tom Lambert to race some fifteen yards into the box to power an unchallenged header past Vaughan.

Six minute to the interval and yet another gaff from Keeling presented Willenhall with their second equaliser. Once again a long ball had the keeper misjudge the flight and as he attempted to clear outside his area he managed to plant a poor headed clearance straight into the path of Mark Swann who remained calm to control the ball then fire into the unguarded net.

Keeling was having much better luck with his conventional goalkeeping tasks in the second half as he palmed away an angled drive from Scott Colcombe, but on 70 minutes his tendency to stray way off his line proved to be his downfall once again.

Substitute John Quilt was quickly onto a superb cross field ball and with Keeling well out of position, last seasons top goal scorer helped himself to his first Northern League goal looping a well time header over the distraught keeper.

With Dynamo pressing hard to save the game, Vaughan produced a smart near post save to stop Steve Gomm’s snap shot and Willenhall closed ranks in the final stages to pick up a hard earned win to delight to traveling supporters.