Hayes & Yeading’s first visit to Hunts Copse, now named The Webbswood Stadium, since a 2008 friendly saw two promotion chasing sides pretty much cancel each other out throughout the ninety minutes even to the extent of each team scoring within minutes of a kick-off as United came home with a hard earned point from a 1-1 draw.

Manager Paul Hughes initially made a single change to his starting line-up with re-signed Joe Grant coming in on the right of the defence in place of Matt Hall who was to drop to the bench. However in another twist, a warm up injury to Callum Buckley resulted in Hall coming back into the side in his normal central defensive role at kick-off.

On a freezing night in Wiltshire United could not have got off to a better start as with just 110 seconds played Francis Amartey raced ahead onto a Manny Duku pass, held off a defender’s challenge and slid the ball confidently past the dive of ‘keeper Martin Horsell into the far corner of the Swindon net.

With both teams cancelling each other out in the middle of the park and with each defence very much on top another clear opening did not arise until 19 minutes had been played and that fell to the hosts when a chip over the United defence saw Henry Spalding nip between the hesitant United defence, Dan Lincoln came out to meet him but the Swindon man poked the ball past the ‘keeper only for it to roll wide of the far post although the retreating Liam McDevitt would have cleared had it been on target.

Four minutes later Lincoln was almost caught wrong footed by his own skipper as McDevitt flicked a header past his own ‘keeper who quickly retreated to grab the ball near his own goal-line.

As we moved to the half hour mark, the last recorded opening of the first period came the way of the visitors as Karl Cunningham and Omar Rowe combined well on the left side with the latter playing the ball inside to the on-coming James Clark but his drive was too high to trouble Horsell in the home goal and United went in to “warm up” with a one goal advantage.

Sadly for the visitors that lead was to last less than three minutes after the re-start as Swindon earned a free-kick on the left of the United area, Jamie Edge played the ball into the United area with the defence only managing to get the ball to the corner of the area where Henry Spalding collected and drilled an unstoppable shot beyond Lincoln into the far top corner of the United net and we were all square once again.

United went close to retaking the lead in the 52nd minute as Joe Grant cut in from the right side and found Amartey, he helped the ball on to Rowe who took a touch before firing in a low shot that went just the wrong side of the upright.

The following 15 minutes saw two good openings created by the home side but thankfully for United both ended with wild off target finishes. Ryan Campbell played the ball inside to a well positioned Harry Williams who turned McDevitt only to fire well wide of the target and then Campbell again caused problems for the United defence, this time his low centre was blazed over by goalscorer Spalding.

The final fifteen minutes belonged to United as Paul Hughes’ side pushed forwards looking to win the game. Grant hit a left foot curler that went inches wide of the post before substitute and United record goalscorer Toby Little almost added to his tally, his 25 yard free-kick heading for top corner only for Horsell to brilliantly claw the ball away to safety for a corner. Little took the flag kick and played the ball deep to Duku who saw his downwards header deflect over off a challenging defender.

In stoppage time Grant, again playing provider, fed the ball to another substitute in the shape of Connor Toomey however his 25 yard effort was held comfortably by Horsell and referee Lisa Benn closed out the game with both sides sharing the spoils.

Report by Kevin Watts.

United Man of the Match: Sanmi Odelusi.