Barton Rovers 2 AFC Dunstable 1

Barton Rovers 2-1 AFC Dunstable

Saturday 22nd March 2025

A decent battle with our near neighbours ultimately proved fruitless as Barton took the points with a

winning goal in the 98 th minute!

Barton (presumably) lost the coin toss and started the first half playing down the slope and very

much started the brighter as they took the game to the visitors. It was absolutely no surprise when

they took an early lead on 9 minutes with a well placed header by Albie Hall following a ball in to the

box from the right. An excellent goal line clearance by Kyle Lynch with 23 on the clock kept AFC in

the game.

The ODs first meaningful effort came on 27 minutes when Sean hit a weak shot just wide but it was

the start of AFC getting back in to the game. A breakaway by Charlie on 34 minutes saw him play the

ball out to Joel – a last ditch touch from a Barton defender saw the ball squirm wide for a corner.

AFC pushed every player up in to attack in preparation for the corner – bizarrely leaving the home

number 9 Nathan Frater all alone just inside his own half (clearly a tactic, as it was the second time

we had done this). The keeper gathered the ball from the corner and quickly played the ball to

Nathan who, with no-one anywhere near him galloped away with the ball towards Matt in goal – As

Matt narrowed the angle, Nathan hit his shot just over the bar – a fortunate escape for us.

The half finished with a Kyle Lynch shot that was pushed wide by the keeper. 1-0 to the home team

at half time.

The second half started with AFC very much on the front foot as they took the game to Barton, some

very good possession but unfortunately no efforts on the goal in the first 15 minutes. The game then

seesawed from one end to the other – a poor pass lead to a breakaway by Barton with 68 gone but a

good save from Matt thwarted the final goal attempt. Just after that a similar situation saw AFC

breakaway but Sim failed to connect with the ball played in to him and the attack fizzled out.

AFC got back in to the game on 78 minutes when Bruce was clearly tripped in the box – an easy

decision for the referee to award a penalty which Sean dispatched with a fine hit sending the keeper

the wrong way. 1-1 and game very much on. Again, it became a story of missed opportunities for

both sides – Barton had an effort with 5 to go that just missed the top corner and 2 minutes later

Sean’s shot was pushed wide by the keeper.

It was not much of a surprise to see 10 minutes added time at the end of the game – there had been

a couple of lengthy stoppages. Matt made one superb stop with his legs in added time as we visibly

tired and to be fair, we were hanging on a bit as the added time went slowly by. With just 2 minutes

to go, Matt Moloney hit a well executed volley that gave Matt no chance as it hit the far post and in

to the net – all our hard work was to no avail as Barton celebrated the goal – fair play to them for

pushing right to the end.

Man of the match (as decided by the AFC committee) was Shawn Joseph.

Team line up (subs in brackets) ; Matt Bonsu, Stan Georgiou, Kyle Brooks, Kyle Lynch, Ben Lynch

(Russell Berko 80), Shawn Joseph, George Joyce (Abel Damoah-Kyeremeh 75), Charlie Davis (Bruce

Ovbiye-Nsang 75), Sean Duodu, Joel Anker (Ethan Holt 93), Simone Troso.