WINCHESTER had a good band of supporters travelling on the coach for the away fixture with Bideford and emerged 2-1 winners.

It was Winchester's first win in seven attempts against Bideford having lost three and drawn three of the previous six matches between the clubs.

Bideford are currently in the lower half of the table, but in their last home match recorded a victory against a Larkhall team who have progressed through three rounds of the FA Trophy and they have an experienced manager in Sean Joyce who has been at the helm since 1998 and as a player played for both Doncaster and Torquay.

Manager Craig Davis afterwards described the 2-1 win as a great result on one of their longest trips of the season even if they did not quite hit the heights of the previous week when they beat the highly rated Bristol Manor Farm 5-1.

Winchester announced an unchanged starting line-up of Philpott, McCormick, King, Griggs, Walster, Nolan, Bailey Smith, Barron, Bentley, Balmer, Mlambo with Bailey, Callaghan, Flooks, Feeney and Bark on the bench.

Winchester took the lead on the half hour when a penalty was awarded for a foul by home goalkeeper Adam Seedhouse-Evans on Ollie Balmer and this was converted by Warren Bentley. Ollie Balmer came close to adding a second four minutes later when he came close to getting a decisive touch to a cross, but the same player made no mistake two minutes later when he pushed the ball past the home goalkeeper and his shot crept into the goal.

Before half time Seedhouse-Evans made a good save from Mlambo and Balmer shot over as Winchester finished the first half strongly. However Bideford's best spell of the game was before the goals went in with Charlie Philpott making a save to deny Jack Calver and making an even better save to keep out a Louie Slough header. Lewis Wilson also nit the crossbar with an overhead kick.

During the second half Winchester introduced Rob Flooks, Oli Bailey and Craig Feeney as substitutes and although Charlie Philpott had to make a good save from Mattie Buchan there were not many shots on target during the second half.

Bideford did score a consolation goal in the third minute of added on time when Ben Wood's cross was headed home by Lewis Wilson, but that did not alter the final result and it was another valuable three points for Winchester whose next match is at home to Cirencester on Tuesday.