Report

Fleet Town         1             Barton Rovers                0

Taylor


ht : 1 - 0                                                                        attn :


Barton Rovers' dreams of the play-offs are all but over as they were beaten 1-0 by Fleet Town in their Evo-Stick Southern League Division One Central clash on Saturday.

Manager Dan Kennoy named an unchanged starting 11 from the 1-1 home draw with Beaconsfield although Bobby Dance returned to the bench.

Rovers started brightly and within the first few minutes Dave Parkinson latched on to a through ball from Danny Payne to force a good save from the Fleet keeper. 

Barton's promising early work was undone on nine minutes though when a clearance from Paul Andrews fell to Fleet's James Taylor who fired the ball under Richard Wilmot.

That was that as far as the scoring went with the second half as uneventful as the first with Barton struggling to muster any momentum.

The introduction of Dance and Sam Spencer saw a slight improvement in Rovers' forward play but they failed to create any clear-cut chances.

Barton are now 12 points away from fifth-placed Biggleswade Town and Kennoy knows promotion dreams are fading fast. 

He said, "It was a very disappointing performance which reflected in the result and may have sealed our fate for the rest of the season in terms of any chance of a play-off place.  We could look at excuses with the two week break but we simply weren't good enough in every department on the pitch.  We may have to look at preparing for next season now.  It's a good time to evaluate where we are and where we need to improve.  It may see one or two players leave the club but we may also see one or two players come in".

Rovers were set to host fourth-placed Bedworth United on Tuesday and entertain Chalfont St Peter this weekend.