MARTIN Johnson’s first-half strike led Warminster Town to a 1-0 win away at Oldland Abbotonians on Saturday as Andy Crabtree’s side moved up to sixth in the Toolstation League Division One table, writes JONATHAN LEIGHFIELD.

In a game that contained very few chances, Johnson’s early strike gave the Weymouth Street side a perfect platform to navigate their way through a tricky tie.

Lewis Graham crashed a half-volley off the bar just before the break and there were no more serious opportunities for either side in the second 45 minutes.

Crabtree felt his side should have made hay during the first half, and the margin of victory might have been far greater against the team that sit second from bottom.

He said: “We could and should have had the game wrapped up by half-time. We created quite a few chances in the first half, didn’t take them, and we hit the bar too.

“Then, in the second half, it just became a struggle. They cancelled us out, and we cancelled them out.

“The pitch played a big part because it was a bit bumpy and that made it difficult for both sides.”

Warminster’s narrow win was their eighth in nine games, while Crabtree’s troops have also kept six clean sheets in that time – a record that goes some way to highlighting their rapid rise up the table.

The Town chief claims his side are not doing anything differently to the first half of the season, where they struggled to find any kind of consistency, and alluded to the fact that a change in luck may have been the catalyst for a change in results.

He said: “We dug it out, we didn’t play particularly well, and I thought we were a little bit fortunate to get away with it, but perhaps we’re getting all our luck at once.

“You make your own luck, but at the same time, we haven’t done anything differently in the past few weeks to how we were doing it when we weren’t winning.

“We’ve now got confidence and the feeling for winning games.

“That does everybody good because you go out there expecting to win, whereas before you never knew what was going to happen.”

Elsewhere, Jamal Chevolleau’s hat-trick helped Corsham Town record a 3-2 win against Wells City, while Calne Town lost 3-1 to Cheddar and Chippenham Park drew 3-3 away at Chard Town.

On Tuesday, the Wiltshire derby between Chippenham Park and Calne was abandoned early in the second half due to an incident that followed a dismissal for a player on each side.