Wellsford Athletic 1–1 Brixton AFC: a late pinch

2/ The opening 45 was economical rather than dull. Wellsford, third on 49 points, kept the ball. Brixton, sixth on 48, kept the shape. Nobody kept the other honest. The 0-0 at the interval had the air of a negotiation rather than a football match.

3/ Five minutes after the restart, one side tore up the agreement. Tobias Renouf slid a pass through, William Cranford finished it, and Wellsford led. The goal mattered twice over. It gave Wellsford the platform their week had hinted at, with Cranford having laid on a goal against Aigburth the previous day. It also handed a genuinely out-of-sorts Brixton an uphill climb. Doing climbs is not their current speciality.

4/ Brixton chased regardless, with the grim discipline of a side who had seen the ending coming but hoped to change it. They could not, until the 88th minute, when the referee pointed to the spot and Ayodeji Bukar made himself useful. Bukar has a habit of late interventions: the 90th-minute winner at Wednesbury, the 54th-minute leveller at Hitchin. Add an 88th-minute equaliser and a point that felt pinched from Wellsford, who had done the hard work and been charged for it.

5/ Their previous encounter ended 2-1, so neither club can claim surprise at the cruelty of this one.

6/ The result leaves Wellsford on 50 and third, Brixton on 49 and sixth, one point apart and both short of comfort. There is no time to sit with a 1-1 that read as a defeat at one end and a victory at the other: Matchday 31 arrives tomorrow. A mercy, probably. The fixture list forgives no one.

Developing.