Surridge Gloucestershire County League Thornbury Town 1 Ellwood 2 THORNBURY Town entertained Ellwood at the Mundy playing fields on Saturday looking to keep in touching distance of the league front runners.

The match was played in crisp winter conditions with both teams fielding strong sides and wanting to take the game to each other in the early exchanges.

After an end-to-end first ten minutes it was Thornbury who began to take control of the midfield with Dave Greaves in commanding mood dictating proceedings.

Thornbury should have taken the lead on 20 minutes when a corner from Joe Hargreaves was whipped across the Ellwood penalty area with no one getting a vital touch.

It was from a similar situation five minutes later that Peter Fowler reacted quickest and headed Town into the lead on 25 minutes.

The remaining first half exchanges were all from Thornbury but with no addition to the score-line.

Ellwood came out for the second half determined to get something out of this game and for the most of the 45 minutes had Thornbury on the back foot.

However, Thornbury kept firm and did in fact have a number of half chance breakaways to make the three points secure.

With the game looking secure and the clock ticking away past the 90-minute mark no-one could believe that the referee had more than ten minutes of injury time up his sleeve.

Ellwood were determined to take advantage of the referee's Christmas generosity and finally broke the Thornbury hearts in the 98th minute when Ricki Lippiatt was adjudged to have pulled the Ellwood striker back in the penalty area and an equalising goal came from the spot.

Still the clock ticked on and in the 101st minute Ellwood were ecstatic when they looped a ball over Farr in the Thornbury goal for what resulted in the winning goal for Ellwood at 2-1.

This Saturday the first team entertain Taverners looking for three points to start the New Year in a positive way.

The reserves travel to Stonehouse Town with both games kicking off at 2pm.