City bring curtain down on 2020 with Hungerford defeat

City’s final game of 2020 ended in a 2-0 defeat to Hungerford Town this afternoon at a bitterly cold Twerton Park. Both goals came in the opening 20 minutes and, despite dominating the second half, City couldn’t recover from this poor start. The visitors direct approach paid dividends after just 12 minutes when a long ball forward was volleyed across goal by Tyler for Seager to head past Will Henry. And it got worse for City eight minutes later when Fasanmade’s shot deflected off James Taylor before looping over the helpless keeper. City had a good chance to reduce the deficit on 29 minutes but Tommy Conway could only steer the ball wide from a great Donovan Wilson cross. Dan Ball replaced Frankie Artus at the interval and the formation change saw City press the Crusaders back and ten minutes into the half they looked to be back in the game when a short corner routine saw Tom Smith volley home only for an offside flag to halt the celebrations. Hungerford were now forced to time-waste at every opportunity – keeper Cairney needing treatment to a thigh problem which didn’t appear to trouble him when racing from his area to clear the danger several times. And he was also unimpeded when keeping out Wilson’s shot at full stretch after 70 minutes as City continued to search for a way back into the game. A Smith shot flew narrowly wide with ten minutes left but increasingly Hungerford’s approach was blunting City’s attack and they saw out the remainder of the game with no further real scares to secure the three points.