First game defeat for Thame

THAME United lost their first game of the season at the hands of Reading-based Highmoor Ibis at the ASM Stadium on Saturday (09/14)  following a 2-0 defeat.

It has now been five seasons since United registered a victory on the opening day of the season and whilst they opened the game brightly, they fell behind after only four minutes when hesitation in the defence enabled Jordan Brown to poke home from close range. For much of the half, United were unable to find their feet with the game contained in the central third of the field. With the game nearing half-time, Highmoor scored their second goal when a through ball was met by Reull Griffiths, who nipped in between Matt Hall and Josh Cockerill to finish.

United moved from a 4-4-1-1 formation to the more familiar 4-4-2 at half time, but the change initially had little impact on the game, which continued to see both sides generally cancelling each other out. Cockerill was called in to action 15 minutes in to the half, doing well to claw-away a goal bound effort, before United had their best period of play. Danny Jones, making his debut following his signing from Aylesbury United, curled an exquisite free kick in to the box that was met by the head of Ellis Hercules whose header just cleared the bar. Two minutes later and some good inter-play between Willett, McDonagh and Gledhill resulted in Jones playing the ball back to Ricketts whose effort from the edge of the box cleared the bar.

That was as good as it got for United as Highmoor closed out the game to take the points back to Berkshire.

United: Cockerill, Willett, Hall, Hercules, Rhodes (Brown), Jones, Connelly (Gledhill), Morris, McDonagh, West (Coverley), Ricketts.