Elliot Star 1

Bennington 2

Herts County League

From the beginning it was Bennington who had the run of play, forcing Star onto the back foot, with the visitors' number nine proving to be quite a handful.

Then Star's Stevie Buss relieved the pressure with a good run up the left wing, and his cross had the Bennington defence reeling, and though this led to a couple of corners, nothing came of them.

Star continued to fight, with Phil Reid being brought down just outside the box and a Danny Plumb free kick went high and wide of its intended target.

Soon after, Bennington's number eight struck the Star bar with an overhead kick. Then in the 24th minute, Star scored.

Plumb found Buss on the left, and his cross was met by Matt Jones, whose header went in at the far post for Star to go 1-0 up.

And Jones featured again, robbing Bennington's keeper on the edge of the box, rolling the ball to Mick Fenton whose shot went wide.

This see-saw play continued as the visitors number nine put the ball over the bar after beating Gary Doolan, on the edge of the Star box.

Then Star's Mark Dalli notched up a marvellous run to catch Bennington's nefarious number nine, who had burst through the offside trap. Dalli intercepted and robbed the Bennington man of the ball.

As the second half opened Bennington came at Star, all guns blazing. But Gavin Day was not to be put off. He made a superb run into the visitors half, beating three players but put his shot just wide of the post.

Then a cross from the visitors right wing put the ball into contact with their dangerous number nine's head, but his lethal edge was blunted somewhat as he missed an easy chance.

Meanwhile, Dalli at right back, was bringing off some great tackles. And then Day put Buss in on the right, but his cross went wide.

Gary Doolan built upon his return to Star last week by chalking up two top-notch interceptions which kept Bennington's hordes at bay. But their number eight struck with the equaliser to make it 1-1. A minute later, as if in reply, Matt Jones ran in from the right but his low ball was mis-hit at the far post by Fenton.

In the 80th minute Star replaced Fenton with James O'Connell, in the 81st minute they replaced the injured Buss with Terry Chaney, and in the 82nd minute Star brought on Andy Kaulouis for Paul Western.

Then as the game entered its dying moments, Bennington scored when a ball was hooked in, and from the resulting melee it ended up in the net, putting the visitors 2-1 up.

Following this Star almost pulled one back when Day fed the ball to Plumb, whose shot beat the keeper but was kicked off the line.

STAR: Rawlings, Dalli, Love, Doolan, Western (Kaulouis), Plumb, Jones, Day, Fenton (O'Connell), Reid, Buss (Chaney). Substitutes not used: Ward, Taylor.

Converted for the new archive on 30 June 2000.Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.