Carlsberg South West Peninsula division one East

Okehampton Argyle 1

Newton Abbot Spurs 1

ON a heavy pitch both teams produced exciting end to end football with a draw a fair result. Argyle, missing the injured Steve Madge and James Sowden, still put in a top class performance.

Argyle nearly took the lead in the first minute when a ball into the box from Luke Alden broke loose in the Spurs' area and new signing Ed Bradshaw was unlucky to see his effort hit the post. Newton Abbot, third in the league, fought back, showing a lot of class up front. They took the lead on 27 minutes when the tricky Matt Barkwell got behind the Argyle defence on the left and pulled the ball back for ex-Torquay United pro Tom Sercombe to fire home an unstoppable shot from the edge of the box.

Argyle came back with Luke Alden always threatening down the left with some superb runs; he was the recipient of some fierce tackles for which the Spurs had two men booked. The Argyle midfield worked hard with some tremendous passes being splayed around by Toby Gostling and great ball-winning tackles from Rob Clark and Ed Squire — but despite periods of pressure Argyle were unable to level before the interval.

Both teams played fast attacking football after the break with half-chances being created at both ends. An injury to full back Dave Smith saw Argyle reorganise with Rob Clarke moving to right back, Ed Bradshaw into midfield role and substitute John Wiseman wide on the right. Clarke did not put a foot wrong at the back, Bradshaw won important aerial battles in the centre and Wiseman showed a tremendous work rate, covering the length of the pitch and challenging for every ball.

Argyle put together a series of good attacks down both flanks with Alden and Brad Ausden prominent. On the hour one of these attacks saw Spurs put the ball out for a corner. Toby Gostling flighted in a superb corner that was powerfully headed home by Argyle captain Dale Chadwick to level the scores.

Spurs turned the screw for the next 20 minutes and Argyle were forced to defend in depth but the back four and midfield did a tremendous job and when Spurs did get a shot in, Craig Mulholland was in fine form in the home goal.

In the last ten minutes, Okehampton began to take the game to Newton Abbot again and could so easily have won it when Toby Gostling's superb ball across the face of the goal just narrowly evaded his on-rushing team mates.

This was a good competitive game and an excellent point against a team who moved up to second place. As usual, this was a tremendous squad performance but for his superb midfield display, man of the match went to Argyle's Toby Gostling.