Corsham Town 1 Frome 1 (From The Wiltshire Gazette and Herald)

Corsham Town 1 Frome 1

9:25am Thursday 23rd March 2006 in Football By Gordon Simpson

THE future is bright for Corsham Town according to chairman John Gingell after the club opened their new 112-seat stand on Saturday.

Ex-chairman Colin Hudd officially opened the £22,000 Southbank stand, which also includes three wheelchair bays, before the match with Frome.

"A lot of hard work has gone into getting it and that's the final piece of the jigsaw," said Gingell.

"Apart from the covered area for the spectators, it does give a focal point and it meets the criteria of the Toolstation League.

"For the amount of people we get there and our financial situation, we've done extremely well and it's an amazing achievement for a club of our size."

Gingell added the stand would likely help attract more fans in to watch games.

"I should think so," he said. "Thinking of the older generation as well, it's always nice to have somewhere to sit down."

Unfortunately for Corsham, the result couldn't quite match the occasion of the day as Frome held them to a draw.

Manager Colin Bush said the title was firmly in Bideford's hands, but they would keep pushing all the way.

"It's Bideford's to throw away," he said. "We've just got to keep trying to go to the end.

"Like I said before, at the top it's much different pressure to coming up the table late on in the season.

"Our players have kept with it quite well and it's good experience for them."

Bush said he was disappointed with the draw, but conceded it was the right result on the day.

"We could have been out of sight before they started," he said. "It was windy and the pitch dried out quickly, which made it awkward.

"We had certainly done enough to win it, but overall I think it was a fair result. We've just got to push on now."

The home side started off very brightly, but spurned a succession of chances in the first 15 minutes.

However, Corsham's flow was then disrupted when Toby Colbourne was forced to depart with a head injury.

Following the early scares, Frome began to work their way into the game and took a surprise 36th minute lead.

Scott Lye failed to clear a ball from defence and Mark Salter was on hand to take it past Craig Chaplain in goal.

However, Lye made up for his error in the 70th minute when he tucked in Jerad O'Pray's centre to level the scores.

The home side piled on the pressure for the last 20 minutes and the lively Ben Fitch almost won the game late on, but his header drifted just wide.