Stratford Town 4 Stourbridge 0

Kayelden Brown played up-front with Jake Heath in support and Stourbridge went with a back four of Joe Hull, Jack Duggan, Stuart Pierpoint and Lewis Probert. Brian Smikle and Chris Lait featured in the wide midfield areas with Brad Birch and young Liam Williams in the centre. Some of our youth team were also included amongst the substitutes, while also on the bench, there was a welcome return for Daniel Scarr, featuring for the first time this pre-season after undergoing an operation in the summer.

The visitors started quite brightly and it was somewhat against the run of play when Stratford opened the scoring with Taylor springing the offside trap in the 24th minute to round Matt Gould and score. The hosts then doubled their lead after 36 minutes when Taylor was adjudged to have been fouled inside the area and Richard Gregory fired home the resulting spot-kick. Matters got even worse for Stour two minutes before the break when a calamitous mix-up between Duggan and Gould let in Taylor for a simple tap-in and Stratford made it 4 - 0 nine minutes into the second period with Taylor completing his hat-trick, converting at the far post following good work by Kieren Westwood. The usual raft of substitutions by both sides saw the contest drift to the final whistle with no further addition to the score.