Gloucester City suffered successive defeats in the Southern Premier Division South for the first time in 2024/25 after losing 1-0 away to in-form Hungerford Town at Bulpit Lane.
Brad Hooper scored the winner for the Crusaders 10 minutes after the interval to give the hosts a deserved win which was their 10th in 13 games in 2025.
After Ben Richards-Everton ran out the defensive line to head a ball away it deflected off a player and into the feet of Hooper who unleashed a powerful strike into the far left corner.
On loan Coventry City keeper Luke Bell impressed again and made a number of last ditch saves and interventions to ensure that the score would not be even greater.
The Tigers failed to register a shot on target in the second half as their chances of automatic promotion have dissipated completely.
Full time in Hungerford. pic.twitter.com/hb2rOKHOfG
— Gloucester City AFC (@GCAFCofficial) March 8, 2025
The result sees City remain in fourth, despite results going their way with title challenges AFC Totton faltering away to Wimborne Town and Walton & Hersham being held away to Hanwell Town in a six goal thriller who play City next time out in the division.
City manager Mike Cook was left frustrated with his side as they and did not play up to the performance levels that they have reached all season that has seen them make a tilt for promotion.
“They won a few more headers, more tackles than what we did and that is disappointing, it’s going to break down as it did with the goal and although it’s a good strike it is just running off the midfielder not picking them up so that is what is disappointing for me.
“Thankfully with Belly (Luke Bell) he saved us a couple times in the first half and a couple of times in the second half, so when you say that Belly is one of our top performers it shows that he is busy.”
The 56-year-old faced frustration from the away fans when he brought off striker Kieran Phillips at the hour mark that left City with one striker up front, before moving Richards-Everton up from defence in the dying embers of the game but he was felt that he had no choice in the circumstances.
“We can understand their frustration but at the end of the day he’s got four goals in the season and if we think we need to change it to bring a little bit of pace and height with Jadyn (Jadyn Crosbie) then that’s where we are at the moment.
“We can understand complaints about not keeping him on but we’ve been quite attacking minded with the changes that we’ve done it’s not like we brought on a defender or anything like that, we just were looking to do something different with Jadyn’s pace.”
Next up for City is a home match against Hanwell Town in a bid to stop the rot and get back on the promotion trail as they aim to have a home tie in a potential play-off semi final by finishing third, and will be hoping to get a victory against the Geordies who are nestled in mid table to address their worrying slide.
