Slough splutter to victory over Aylesbury

Without giving a totally convincing display at Wexham Park on Tuesday evening in torrid conditions, Slough Town safely negotiated the first hurdle in the Berks and Bucks Senior Cup with victory over their great rivals in this competition, Aylesbury United.

It was a somewhat stuttering performance from the Rebels, who paved the way for a comfortable victory with goals from sweetly struck shots from Rowan Dodds and Alan Paris and then had to survive a tremendous last ditch fightback by Aylesbury.

In fact during the last five minutes Slough came extremely close to throwing away the tie, as Aylesbury wasted several fine chances to take the match into extra-time after an 83rd minute goal from Trevor How had put the Southern League side back in the game.

This was the fourth successive year the two teams had clashed in this competition, but unlike the previous encounters Aylesbury did not really provide the same force. Their line-up has changed dramatically this season and they are finding life tough with a number of young inexperienced players in their side. In fact it is doubtful whether a similar performance by the Rebels against the Aylesbury "of old" would have been good enough to overcome their Bucks rivals.

However there were still plenty of good points to come out of this latest Slough performance, which extended their unbeaten run to six matches, as once again they delighted a good crowd at times with their now familiar brand of quick, decisive attacking football.

The game was only 12 minutes old when Rowan Dodds cut inside the Aylesbury penalty area and fired in a hard low shot which stuck the post and then rebounded off the unfortunate goalkeeper Keith Baker to put Slough ahead.

Slough generally held the upper hand in the first half, although Aylesbury showed great determination and commitment for the task in hand if at times their play lacked the real conviction to really test the Rebels defence.

A fine move involving Eddie Hutchinson, Dodds and Devon Petty ended with Dylan Evans' far post header being clawed away by Baker, while after 46 minutes Dodds went desperately close following one of his explosive runs through the Aylesbury defence.

Slough started the second half brightly and a tremendous 25 yard swerving effort from Francis Araguez had Baker in all sorts of trouble, before after 50 minutes Paris added a second goal. The ball broke to the young striker, who has recently been attracting the attention of Watford, and he struck a beautiful first time low shot just inside the post past Baker.

However from this point onwards Slough's game started to fall away as they lost their rhythm and started to look a rather disjointed outfit. Conditions did not help as a monsoon type storm hit the ground, but this did not deter Aylesbury from staging a great fightback.

It took a fine save from Frank Parsons to foil Byron Walton, and then How headed well wide when it almost looked easier to score.

Vaughan Powell and Dodds were replaced by Dave Yerby and Dave Russell in a double substitution, but still Slough continued to struggle as they lost control of the midfield and Aylesbury started to surge forward.

Keith White hit one of his blockbusting free kicks which Baker did well to push over the bar, before on 83 minutes How pulled a goal back for Aylesbury, when he collected a cross from the right and turned to hammer the ball past Parsons.

Slough now had to survive a desperate onslaught from Aylesbury in the closing minutes, as Andy Dockery headed wide when well placed and then both How and Walton had fine chances to equalise when they broke through the Slough defence.

But in the end the Rebels held on to their slender lead with Eric Young turning in another immaculate performance in the heart of the defence as time and again he snuffed out any danger the Aylesbury attack threatened.