Soham Town Rangers 0 Tilbury 1

A LAST-gasp goal from Tilbury robbed Soham of a point in a real scrap of a game at Julius Martin Lane on Saturday.

With the game in its 90th minute and seemingly sauntering towards a draw, Soham were rocked by an Alex Read strike that thundered low past Dan Bircham from 25 yards out.

The defeat, which extended Soham’s run without a win into its fourth game, saw the Greens slip to 18th place in the Ryman Division One North ahead of next Saturday’s trip to promotion-hopefuls Enfield Town.

Striker Dubi Ogbonna had the first real effort of the game after two minutes as he worked a yard of space on the edge of the box to fire a left-foot shot at Tilbury’s goal. Unfortunately for Soham though, Ogbonna mis-hit his effort and the ball was comfortably gathered by the Tilbury keeper, James Marrable.

Dan Cotton saw his free-kick from 20 yards curl wide and Ogbonna spurned another good opportunity after drifting in from the left wing.

The visitors lacked any real cutting edge in the opening half-hour but a couple of fizzing efforts from Eljay Worrell and Gary Henty kept Dan Bircham on his toes.

The Greens’ best chance of the half came in the 40th minute as Scott Carter pounced on a half-cleared ball on the edge of the box and sent a dipping volley rocketing goalwards.

His superb effort was matched by Marrable however, who produced an excellent save to keep the scores level.

A lofted ball from midfield had Matt Robinson in on goal with minutes to play only for the striker to get caught in two minds and send a tame effort into the arms of the grateful keeper.

Ogbonna had another good shooting chance from the edge of the box after the break but with a couple of defenders left trailing in his wake, the striker dragged his shot wide of the far post.

After a busy opening 10 minutes the game all but petered out as the respective midfields toiled for dominance.

The game re-ignited in the final minute however, as Tilbury’s Marrable produced a game-changing save from Michael Simpson’s point blank effort, before the ball was distributed up field to Read, who settled the match with a show-stopping strike.