Football: Okehampton's courageous comeback in vain.

  Exeter Civil Service 4  Okehampton Argyle 2

  Report by Charlie Bond – Okehampton Argyle FC

The inability of Okehampton’s defence to deal with corners and high crosses was the deciding factor in this hotly contested match away to highly placed Exeter Civil Service.  

Argyle were missing suspended central defender Matt Mortimer and Mark Burdus, Steve Williams and Steve Kinsey were all unavailable for this game, but the squad rose to the occasion and matched their hosts for the majority of the game.  Dan Johnston and Kev Gill were solid at the back and the hard working Rickie Wooldridge and Stuart Entwhistle added to the skills of Kel Fofala in midfield.  Up front Darren Prouse and Frankie Nomah-Koneh posed problems for the Civil defence and Nomah-Koneh was certainly not given an easy ride by his former team-mates.  

Okes stunned the home side after 20 minutes when Nomah-Koneh finished off a lovely move down the right with a fierce shot from just inside the box to open the scoring.  Two minutes later, Nomah-Koneh broke through on the left and saw his shot beat the Civil keeper and appear to pass a foot into the goal before being cleared, only for the referee to waive play on.  The home side made the most of this let off and were level on 25 minutes when Dave Wilkes was left with a free header from a corner.  Two minutes later, Argyle failed to cut out a corner from the left and Matt Byrne headed Civil into the lead.

Civil started the second half stronger than the Okes and twenty minutes in, another high cross was controlled by Dave Wilkes who beat two defenders before firing home.  With only fifteen minutes left, a long high ball into the box passed over Chris Will’s head and left Darren Bingham with a free header to give Harry Geering in the Argyle goal no chance.

Okehampton then revitalised the side by bringing on midfielders Ed Squire and Matt Sanders and speedy forward Sam Appleby and Argyle pressed Civil back for this last quarter of an hour.  Darren Prouse was desperately unlucky to see a fierce shot rebound from the Civil post and Nomah-Koneh reduced the arrears with a cool finish ten minutes from time.  Things were evened up in this period when a fast break out of defence by the home side saw them have play waived on when the ball appeared to cross Okehampton’s goal-line, but it was Argyle who continued to press as the clock ran down to end a very entertaining match.