Newtown 0, Pershore 5

PERSHORE made the long journey to mid-Wales for last weekend's penultimate league game before the Christmas break and came back victorious after an excellent all-round performance.

The game began with the hosts on the offensive but a well structured back four of Jamie Hughes, Stewart Spe-ake, Gareth Rushton and Andy Taylor never looked like letting them though.

The visitors opened the scoring following a set-piece that saw Graeme Rushin fire the ball to the back post where Russell Black finished expertly.

Pershore were soon reduced to ten men when Russell Scu-damore picked up a nasty head injury. However, Pers-hore continued to dominate and scored a second through Toby Whiting, who also saw another effort harshly disallowed while also missing a penalty flick.

The first 20 minutes of the second half, with Pershore restored to 11 players, was exhibition stuff.

They scored three more goals, another for Black after an excellent move down the right involving the speed and guile of Jamie and Matt Hug-hes and James Rayner, one for the injured Scudamore and one for Rushin.

Newtown came back into the game in the last ten minutes when good goalkeeping and last-ditch tackling meant Chris Graham kept his first ever clean sheet.

The league game is a rear-ranged fixture at Market Dra-yton who are currently two places above Pershore in a promotion spot.

Kingswinford III 2, Pershore III 2

PERSHORE had hoped to win against the league's bottom side but they found themselves up against the strongest team the home side had put out all season.

Nevertheless, if games were decided on chances, then Pershore would have had the game sewn up well before half-time.

Unfortunately, they failed to convert as many as they should have while Kingsw-inford had two chances and scored both!

The first goal came in the eighth minute when the home centre forward slipped the ball under Liam Booles.

Pershore surged forward and Neil Herman finally converted a good short corner move.

More chances came and went as the young Pershore players found it hard to get the power into the final ball which would have led to a feast of goals.

They then took the lead through Rob Curley's penalty flick, but Kingswinford took their second opportunity of the match and the game finished all-square.