Road to Cardiff - Salisbury unlucky to go out

A bumper crowd of 1,195 saw Slough Town secure a place in the FA Cup 1st Round with a hard fought 3-2 victory against Salisbury City. This means we have another team to follow in this season's Road to Cardiff.

On Saturday Slough Town will host Paul Merson's League One side Walsall. Slough, nicknamed The Rebels are currently 15th in the Ryman Premier League, a point ahead of Salisbury City. This is how Slough saw off City:

With only two minutes on the clock a free kick was harshly awarded for a foul on Darron Wilkinson 20 yards from goal and ALEX HADDOW curled an exquisite left foot shot around the wall and into the bottom corner to silence the large travelling Salisbury support.

Their silence didn’t last long however as they were back on level terms within three minutes. A cross was curled into Slough's area, ROBERT MATTHEWS climbed higher than the retreating defenders to plant a firm header down and into the net past Jake Whincup.

Slough were lucky to remain in front after a series of goalmouth scrambles with Whincup struggling to command his area amongst the tall Salisbury forwards so it was against the run of play when Town regained the lead after 16 minutes. A corner on the left was played towards the penalty spot with pinpoint accuracy by Glen Harris and was met by IAN HODGES to power the ball past Kevin Sawyer with a bullet header.

Salisbury were fired up at the start of the second half although Slough fans would have been disappointed at the way their team sat back and invited the visitors on the offense and it was no real shock when City equalised.

A long throw into the Rebels’ penalty area was flicked on and the ball struck Wilkinson high on the upper arm. Despite Slough protests that it was ball to hand rather than the other way round the spot kick was awarded and ADAM WALLACE stroked the ball to Whincup’s left as he went the other way.

The visitors had been in the ascendancy for long periods before their equaliser although it was the home side that responded better to the Salisbury goal, mounting a greater number of attacks than at any point during the second half.

As both sides pushed for a winner although it was the home side that finally settled the tie with a goal two minutes before the end of normal time. Carbon collected the ball again just outside the six-yard box, almost sitting on it as he tried to fend off challenges. Managing to get the ball out from under his feet, he found DARRON WILKINSON with a clever back heel and the left foot shot from the veteran midfielder spun into the net via the despairing outstretched hand of Kevin Sawyer.

In 5 minutes of added time Salisbury bombarded the Slough goal but The Rebel's hung on for a famous victory, made all the more sweeter when Walsall were drawn out of the hat to play them.

Man of the match : Alex Haddow
Attendance: 1,195