Whitchurch United 0 Blackfield & Langley 2

WHITCHURCH were left four points adrift at the bottom of the JWL after losing last Saturday's bottom-of-the-table clash with Blackfield & Langley at Longmeadow.

But Whitchurch manager Brian Drury said that all is not lost. "The situation at the moment is of great concern to everyone at the club. I know it looks bleak but I met with the club's committee after the game, they know the problems, and they've agreed to try and attract more players to the club. "

Whitchurch, who also lost 3-1 at home to NHL side Vernham Dean in the North Hants Senior Cup last Thursday night, had enough chances to have won last Saturday's crucial six-pointer but just could not score.

They even had what looked a perfectly good effort disallowed on the half hour when Chris Iddles pulled the ball back from the bye-line for Mark Fox to sweep the ball home only for a linesman to disallow it for offside. "There were some strange decisions all afternoon," added a bemused Drury,

Whitchurch were well on top at that stage but Blackfield grew in confidence as the game wore on and they took the lead in the second when second choice 'keeper Darren Heath, who came in for Dave Smalley after he went down with a chest infection, was bundled into the back of the net along with the ball. "The referee gave that one," sighed Drury.

Whitchurch continued to have the better of play and got in behind the Blackfield defence on a number of occasions but never looked like hurting them with their first touch letting them down time and again before Blackfield sealed the points with a second goal five minutes from the end. "The conditions were awful but we need to do better than that," summed up Drury.

Two nights earlier a Whitchurch side containing a mix of first and second team players took the lead against Vernham with a goal from Mark Page five minutes into the second half. Vernham equalised with an overhead kick out of the blue.

"They didn't get a kick for the first hour," said Drury, "but when they scored it changed the game completely. We started trying to defend from the half way line and they knocked two over the top to score twice more."

Whitchurch (4-4-2): Heath; Rees, Morris, Shaughnessy, Bowden; Page, Mark Fox, Restell; Alex Iddles, Chris Iddles, Mark Drury. Subs: Hack, Penkethman, Paul Fox (not used).