A big weekend in the Swindon and District Football League as the quarter finals of the Up A Ladder Cup and Don Rogers Plate were played out.

Up A Ladder Cup Round Up

There is still one fixture to be played in the Cup when Nalgo Sports will welcome Down Ampney to see who will take the final spot in the semi-final draw.

Already in the hat for the next round are Hatherop who travelled to Ashton Keynes for their quarter final fixture. It was Ashton Keynes who were considered the favourites to take the win but Hatherop upset the apple cart and progressed in to the semi-finals with a comfortable 3-0 victory.

SDFL champions Blunsdon also booked a place in the next round getting through a tricky tie with Priory Vale. It was a tight and competitive first half with Priory making Blunsdon work hard and not allowing them to assert themselves on the game.

However, it was Blunsdon who went in at half time with a narrow 1-0 lead thanks to an Eliot Wheatley penalty.

In the second half, Priory missed a number of good opportunities to level things up and off the back of those misses, it was Blunsdon who started to control the game and gain confidence.

Some clinical finishing from Lee Toomey and Lewis Morland saw Blunsdon take a 4-0 lead from which Priory were unable to recover.

The last quarter final game saw Division 1 winners Chiseldon visit Highworth Dev and it was the visitors who were quickest off the mark scoring in the opening few minutes of the game thanks to a headed goal from James Lovell.

They soon doubled their lead through a second headed goal which was tucked away at the back post by Matthew Rees. The score remained 2-0 until half time even though Chiseldon missed a number of opportunities to increase their lead.

With the second half underway, Highworth Dev slowly started to get back into the game but, for all their good work, a 3rd goal was added to the Chiseldon tally thanks to some great footwork in the box and a neat finish by Kias Bonner-Shea to give Chiseldon some breathing space.

Highworth weren’t ready to roll over though and managed to pull one back after a great delivery into the box found their attack in space who was able to head home past the keeper.

This gave Highworth a lifeline but sadly they weren’t able to push on from that point and the score remained 3-1 meaning Chiseldon keep their league and cup double hopes alive.

Don Rogers Plate

Spectrum came out on top of a hard fought but entertaining game against Intel.

Intel found themselves with a narrow 3-2 lead going in to the last few minutes of the game thanks to a goal for James Joyce and a double from John Horgan. However, a late goal on the 86th minute from Spectrum levelled things up and it looked like penalties were going to be needed to split the two sides.

It was a penalty that settled the game but it was a penalty awarded deep in to injury time to Spectrum that set the game up for a dramatic ending.

Ricky Hewitson was unfazed by the pressure of the situation, stepped up and slotted the ball home for his second goal of the game giving Spectrum a very late winner and securing their place in the semi-finals

Semi-Final Draw

The draw for the semi-final will take place on the evening of Monday 11th April and will be made using the “Spin The Wheel” app as per the previous draws.

We will look to post the video of the draws once they have been made on the website.

The semi-final games will be played on Saturday 23rd April with the final being played at Saturday 30th April at Gerard Buxton Sports Ground.