Clanfield's ‘gamble’ pays off as five Portsmouth University students impress in shock draw with Hampshire Premier League leaders

Manager Lee Blakely responded to five straight Hampshire Premier League defeats by handing debuts to five students.

In came centre backs Ben Linter and Joe Wych, full back Matt Skevington and midfielders Will Martin and Dylan Riches.

They were all brought to Clanfield thanks to assistant manager Pete Hamilton’s university links.

None of the quintet had even played for the reserves before, and last week was the first time they had trained with their new team-mates.

That made the 1-1 draw against Infinity even more impressive.

‘It was probably the best performance since I’ve been at the club,’ said Blakely.

‘It was a massive improvement on what we had been producing.

‘We needed to change it, we needed to do something different.

‘Some of the existing players were struggling to raise their games to the level we need.

‘It was a bit of a gamble, but I felt we needed a new approach and we needed it quickly.

‘We need to change the mentality. It’s a tight-knit group and I got the feeling some players thought they should play because they’re Clanfield through and through.

‘I’m not going to play someone just because they’re my mate.

‘We want to win promotion and if the players here couldn’t raise their performance levels, we need to bring in players who can.’

Blakely was adamant his side could have ended Infinity’s long unbeaten league run which now stretches to 36 games.

After James Barker had cancelled out Josh Cripps’ first-half goal for the hosts, Clanfield striker Mauro Morais had an effort ruled out for offside.

Blakely was annoyed the same player had seen a goal chalked off against Paulsgrove the previous week for offside.

‘That’s two in two weeks now,’ he said. ‘I do find it frustrating in this league that we haven’t got any (neutral) linesmen.’

Clanfield welcome Sway this weekend aiming to register their first HPL win since beating rock bottom Lyndhurst on September 12.