Gunned down by Worthing

Slough Town were quite literally blasted to defeat by high flying Worthing on Tuesday evening at Wexham Park, leaving the Rebels and their supporters' totally shell-shocked at the finish of a quite remarkable match.

If one had prophesied what was to happen in the second half of this Servowarm Isthmian League Premier Division match most people in the ground would have probably branded you an idiot.

Producing by far the best football this season Slough raced into a two goal first half lead and Worthing's great start-four wins in their opening four league matches-looked to be well and truly over.

But then like on Saturday the Rebels gave away a somewhat needless penalty and allowed their Sussex opponents back into the match. And the Worthing bomb then simply exploded as they crashed home three goals in a quite stunning 12 minute period, to turn what looked like a victorious Slough side into a completely stunned and well beaten one.

Playing a brand of football rarely seen before at Wexham Park but, which made Watford so successful last season, Worthing's finishing was razor sharp and their tactics of pumping long first time balls for their prolific strikers to chase after will surely upset many other sides this season.

Slough made a dream start when after 17 minutes the impressive Steve Norman's pass completely deceived Geoff Raynsford, and Gary Attrell seized the opportunity to score his first goal of the season with his shot from an acute angle finding its way into the net at the far post.

Producing some superb free flowing attacking football the Rebels were now really on song and back to their best. Henry Paquette went desperately close with a diving header before on 42 minutes from Mick Doherty's corner- after a sustained period of Slough pressure- Keith White rose majestically at the near post to send a fierce header past Alan Dovey.

It seemed nothing could stop the Rebels now but six minutes into the second half Worthing fired their first warning shot. When there seemed no apparent danger White was, perhaps somewhat harshly, adjudged to have fouled Kevin Foreman on the edge of the area and from the resultant penalty Mick Edmonds put Worthing back into the match.

And then like a rapid exchange of machine gun fire Worthing struck in dramatic fashion. First after 54 minutes a long pass from Trevor Dove found Edmonds and in one stunning movement he turned and cracked the ball past Frank Parsons from 15 yards.

Eight minutes later Worthing went ahead. Another rapid sweeping attack resulted in the classy Paul Lelliot crossing to the far post and former Brighton player Danny Deans, headed home with the Slough defence in tatters.

Sandwiched between all this action was a quite stunning double save by Alan Dovey which probably changed the whole course of the match. With the score at 2-2, Pacquette and Devon Petty - making his debut this season-linked superbly and it took a great save by Dovey to foil Petty. As the ball bounced across the face of goal Mick Doherty seemed certain to score but, Dovey somehow managed to recover and make a brilliant stop at the base of the post and keep out what seemed a certain goal.

Worthing completed their "mini-massacre" of the Rebels in the 75th minute with another goal of stunning efficiency. A long ball from Lelliot deceived Joe Moloney and that man Edmonds struck again with a superb 20 yard shot which crashed past Parsons and completed a hat-trick for the talented striker. And it could have been worse for Slough had the post not kept out an effort by Deans some two minutes later.

However by now the Rebels were totally shattered and what had seemed like three more vital points had turned into a nightmare evening for Terry Reardon's side.