Rebels And Rovers Share The Points

Slough Town made the journey up to Bedfordshire to find themselves confronted with an awful playing surface at Barton Rovers Sharpenhoe Road ground. With Rebels fans fearing the worst, Slough put in a battling performance to ground out a point against their lower placed rivals.

The game saw Steve Browne in the stands so Slough were managed for this game by Eddie Denton and Troy Townsend. The shock of the starting line up saw new boy Ian Hodge replace Sammy Winston with the crowd favourite starting on the bench in a surprising move.

With the first real opening of the game after seeing Barton settle the quicker of the two sides, Roberts found himself with some space in the right hand channel of the area following an overlap run and duly slammed home with a low strike past Blake in the Rebels goal to leave the travelling Amber Army in a state of shock.

Slough slowly began to adapt their game to the surface putting extra weight on grounded passes but more often opting for a slightly lofted ball across the pitch bringing both Paul Barrowcliff and Dean Palmer into more attacking situations. Palmer had Slough's first half chance of the game as he made space for himself on the edge of the area, but his shot sailed high over the Barton goal.

Blake was called into action shortly after a Darron Wilkinson booking as he superbly tipped over a fierce Barton effort.

Slough continued to press the Barton goal, but were struggling with both the conditions of the surface and also the marshalling of the defence. They did manage to breakthrough after 33 minutes when Byron Bubb found a lot of space in the box following a Palmer free kick and shot past the keeper to draw the sides level again.

The Rebels had a blow with ten minutes of the first half remaining as inspirational left back Paul Barrowcliff was forced to leave the pitch due to injury and was replaced by Nick Gyoury as Ricky Browne slotted in at left back.

Debutant Ian Hodge nearly got a debut goal shortly before half time with a dangerous whipped in cross from Bubb was met by the youngsters head, but the ball flashed the wrong side of the post.

Slough were firmly on top as the game progressed into first half injury time, and but for a superb block would have seen themselves in the lead at the break. Boot was released down the left wing and his low cut back was volleyed goal bound by Spencer. Unfortunately for Slough, the ball was deflected wide.

The conditions caused for a very scrappy start to the second half and with the referee becoming increasing whistle happy, the half had no flow and was very stop start preventing either side from gathering any momentum to maintain an advantage.

Blake was twice called into action, although on both occassions, the shots were directly at the veteran keeper and both were comfortable saves.

Winston was introduced into the action after seventy five minutes in place of Tony Boot who wasn't having the run of luck on the playing surface. Winston made an almost immediate impact though as he was sent clear. With Hodge in support, the fans favourite went alone beating the last defender before slotting the ball under the advancing keeper. The ball slowly trickled toward the net, but with no Barton players close enough, the ball rolled all the way into the net much to the delight of the hundred or so travelling Slough fans.

Barton battled back hard and had Slough on the back foot for the remaining ten minutes and nearly equalised with their next chance. A low strike through a crowd bobbled right before Blake and the ball rebounded back off him toward a Barton player. Under pressure, the ball was prodded back under Blake and somehow Gyoury belted the ball along the goal line, off the post and back out into play where it was hastily hacked away to touch.

In the event though, Blake sustained an injury to his hand which appeared to affect him for the remaining minutes. With all three subs used, Blake was forced to continue for the remaining time and was picking the ball out of the net within minutes.

Carey was allowed space round the back post and as the striker cut inside, his low shot across goal could only be parried in by Blake in a disappointing end to a very dour match.