Ludlow Town 3 Cradley Town 2-
LUDLOW'S luck finally changed and they fully deserved their Midland Alliance win after dominating most of the game against a Cradley team who have been taking points off the top sides recently.
It looked like a familiar story when Ludlow created some excellent early opportunities but failed to finish. In their first real attack on goal, the visitors scored when a driven cross into the six-yard box by Lee Beddoes found it's way past a couple of defenders and crept in at the far post.
Ludlow continued to play excellent approach football and after Gareth Horler and Darren Leonard had gone close Alan Hider levelled for Town with a superb strike in the 23rd minute.
On the half-hour, Horler and Leonard combined well to set up Darryl Smith who volleyed the ball home from 12 yards to give Ludlow an interval lead.
After the break Town again forced the play but it was Cradley who found the target when they took advantage of hesitation by the home defenders to nip in and level through Chris Jones.
Ludlow responded with a series of excellent probes through David Andrewartha, Leonard and Horler but again the final ball was missing.
At the other end Cradley almost snatched the lead but Martin Poole made a timely save to deny Jones.
As play moved into the final phase, Ludlow got their deserved reward, and three welcome points, when Smith broke through to blast home a crisp winner.
Manager Les Bristow was relieved to get a win and commented: "I had set the lads a target of nine more points before the end of the season. We got three and now for the other six."
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