Saturday, December 21, 2002

BROMSGROVE Rovers ensured they will lead the Dr Martens Western at Christmas with a hard fought 1-0 victory over Racing Club Warwick at the Victoria Ground last Saturday.

Mark Clifton headed the winner on 40 minutes to give Gary Hackett and Jon Ford's side the perfect tonic ahead of four games in nine days over the holiday period.

With 20 games now gone, Rovers are genuine title contenders but Ford admitted he would have laughed those suggestions off at the start of the season.

He said: "We are top at Christmas and if someone had said that at the start I would have ha a little chuckle to myself."

Rovers also survived the Warwick clash unscathed in the injury department, something along with the festive party spirit, that Ford wants his players to be wary of in the next fortnight.

He added: "They are all important games. We are going to approach it one at a time and we will use 16 or 17 players.

"As long as we keep our professionalism over the Christmas period we have the quality to come through."

Rovers dominated the game for large spells and should have won by more but it could have been so different had Matt Lowe not got a vital hand to Paul Rostrom's shot inside the first 90 seconds.

Steve Frost was denied on 20 minutes when his bullet header was parried onto the cross bar by the impressive Gary Hateley.

Five minutes before half time, the hosts got the breakthrough. Paul Danks' close range effort was saved well by Hateley but Clifton was on hand to head home from three yards.

A largely poor second half saw Frazer McHugh and Richard Burgess both have shots saved within a matter of seconds on 58 minutes but for all their possession, Rovers created little else.

Racing Club, second bottom in the Western, failed to trouble Lowe's goal for the entire second half and needed goalkeeper Hateley to save a Grant Beckett free-kick with two minutes left.

ROVERS

Lowe 7, Benbow 6, Banner 6, Clifton 7, McHugh 7, Pope 6, Dyson 6, Cartwright (sub Beckett 69 mins) 7, Burgess (sub Read 88 mins) 7, Danks (sub Palmer 72 mins) 7, FROST 8*. Subs not used: Lloyd, Brookes.

Att - 398.