Soham Town Rangers 2 Needham Market 2

A LATE equaliser for Needham Market denied Soham an unlikely win on Saturday.

Despite taking the lead within the opening 12 minutes, Needham were largely outplayed by the home side and were fortunate to emerge with a point after Lee McGlone headed home with five minutes to play to cancel out Andy Furnell’s double.

The point sees Soham remain in 19th place in the Ryman Division One North, with a trip to Waltham Abbey to come on Tuesday.

Needham went perilously close to opening the scoring after just 30 seconds as McGlone waltzed through an absent home defence and fired goalwards, only for Andy Coleman, making his 300th appearance for the club, to clear off the line.

With the visitors comfortably in the ascendancy though, it came as no surprise when Bradley Barber’s free-kick curled over the wall and into the top corner from 20 yards to hand them the lead.

With a lead in place however, Needham retreated into defence and allowed Soham into the game. Midfielder Dan Cotton was first to test the visiting keeper with a low shot from 20 yards that was tipped around the post.

Furnell had a shot blocked when bearing down on goal before pulling the home side level in the 32nd minute, easily outjumping the Needham defence to nod home a Cotton free-kick.

David Cobb and Ben Seymour-Shove both had decent shooting opportunities that were well saved in the run up to half-time as Soham continued to grow into the game.

It was more of the same after the break as Furnell’s men took control. Cobb saw a rasping shot deflected narrowly wide before Scott Carter spurned a glorious chance by skewing a free header well wide.

Despair quickly turned to joy though, as Furnell reacted quickest to a loose ball in the Needham six-yard box to poke home.

A whipped free-kick from McGlone had Dan Bircham stranded in the home goal shortly after the breakthrough but crept wide before the striker made amends by nodding home from close range after a long throw.