Eagles return with a point
On a rare Sunday afternoon outing, Bedford came back from Worcestershire with a point after playing out a goalless draw against Evesham United. The 'home' side are still tenants at Worcester City FC, who hosted Nuneaton Town the previous day, hence the game on the Sabbath.
Ady Williams, with a threadbare squad at the moment, made one change to the side beaten on the August Bank Holiday Monday, with Jamie Cole replacing the absent Stacey Field.
The first half was a drab affair with very few chances at either end, with a woeful shot from Jermaine Clarke that went wide, and a tame effort from Graham Clark which failed to bother Nathan Vaughan, in the Evesham goal.
The 2nd period, however, raised the tone of the game, and Bedford was unlucky not to finish the 90 minutes with their first win of the season.
After Steve Luckett's effort that was comfortably saved by Ian Brown, in the 48th minute, Bedford went on the offensive.
From that save, the ball was rolled out to Callum Lewis, on the right, and his long diagonal ball found Phil Draycott, whose searching run into the Evesham area resulted in Zac Costello dashing over to block the final shot.
The Eagles kept up the pressure, with a lot of the play coming from the right hand side, with Lewis, and Jamie Cole terrorising the Evesham defence. Craig Rydeheard bossed the midfield and sprayed passes around as though they were going out of fashion.
Just after the hour, Derwayne Stupple's run out of his own half drew half of the Evesham defence towards him, giving Clark enough space for a shot when the pass came. Unfortunately for the Bedford midfielder, there was too much time to think where to put the ball and the eventual shot bobbled just wide of the left hand post.
Having weathered the first 20 minutes of the 2nd half, the home side came out of their shell a bit more; substitute, Simon Fitter, floated a free kick onto the top of the Bedford net.
Bedford weren't finished with the attacking, and another effort went close when Rydeheard picked out Clark, on the right hand edge of the area. Clark made room for himself, but just cleared the bar with his final touch.
With seven minutes of normal time remaining, there was a heart stopping moment for the Eagles when Justin Nisbett got the wrong side of Gavin Hoyte. The towering Bedford defender didn't give up, and after tracking back, did enough to put Nisbett off, hitting a wayward shot.
Rydeheard found Ian Draycott, in the 88th minute, and the young striker beat three players before hitting a low shot that bobbled harmlessly away from the left hand post.
A minute into injury time, a flowing move down the left was crossed to the edge of the Bedford area where Jermaine Clarke swept the ball narrowly wide of the left hand post.
The percentage of play in the 2nd half warranted a goal for Bedford, but at least the draw stopped the rot of consecutive defeats.
1 Ian Brown, 2 Callum Lewis, 3 Eddie Lawley, 4 Derwayne Stupple (c), 5 Stuart Wall, 6 Gavin Hoyte, 7 Jamie Cole, 8 Graham Clark (12 Rob Miller 84), 9 Ian Draycott, 10 Craig Rydeheard, 11 Phil Draycott (14 Tom Damon 90).
Sub not used; gk Michael Kavanagh
Attendance 146
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Weather for Bedford
Tuesday 14 February 2012
Today
Sunny spells
Temperature: 4 C to 8 C
Wind Speed: 16 mph
Wind direction: North west
Tomorrow
Cloudy
Temperature: 3 C to 10 C
Wind Speed: 21 mph
Wind direction: North west
