Thatcham Bourne again as Oli scores miracle header

Thatcham Town continued their excellent away form on Saturday, beating Isthmian League South Central high flyers South Park 4-2.

The Kingfishers have now picked up 10 points from the last 15 available on the road and boss Yashwa Romeo is targetting a late run at the play-offs, which seemed almost unimaginable a couple of months ago.

South Park promised to provide another real test of Thatcham’s credentials as the visitors arrived at Whitehall Lane with the Sparks in fifth in the league, albeit on a mixed run, winning just once in their previous four games.

Thatcham made a great start and were ahead in just the third minute when Josh Edwards popped up with a rare goal to stun the hosts and make it 1-0.

It got even worse for South Park after a quarter of an hour as midfielder Ryan Healy steamed in with a reckless challenge that resulted in a red card, leaving the Sparks a goal and a man down.

Thatcham compounded the home side's misery minutes later when Harry Williams, Romeo's recent recruit from Holyport, scored his first goal for the Kingfishers to make it 2-0.

Onlookers would've been forgiven for thinking that was game over but South Park showed why they were competing in the upper echelons of the league and hit back 10 minutes before the break when Sean King stepped up to score from the spot after a lapse in concentration from the Kingfishers back line.

However Thatcham restored their two goal cushion 15 minutes after half time in bizarre fashion when centre-half Oli Bourne, who was on trial at Colchester in the summer, headed the ball forward from some 40 yards, which caught the wind and caught out South Park stopper Simon Bassey, bouncing over the hapless goalkeeper to make it 3-1 in astounding fashion.

That advantage lasted less than two minutes as South Park struck back again thanks to winger Craig McGee, who halved the deficit on the hour.

Thatcham had the last laugh and wrapped up the three points in the 87th minute when Taylor Harry finished with aplomb to make it 4-2 and put the gloss on another fine away performance from Yashwa Romeo's side.

"We think we've got an outside chance at the play-offs, which is brilliant given where we were in November," Romeo said.

"The fact we're even talking about things like that is great, I don't think many people would've backed us to go on a run like this.

"We've added some really good additions to the squad and performances have been excellent."