A first-half penalty by Joe Tustain gave Winchcombe Town the perfect start to 2026.

It earned them a fine 1-0 win at Barnwood United in Northern Senior League Division Two, only their third in 16 games.

Barnwood are fourth in the 15-strong division and Winchcombe secretary Matt Roberts said: “It was a really good penalty and a cracking result, an excellent start to the new year.

“The lads were brilliant, it was a great performance.”

It was Winchcombe’s first win since mid-November when they thumped bottom-of-the-table Mitcheldean 7-0 and Roberts, who is joint manager of the reserves with Adam Parry, is hoping that Lawrence Martin’s side can kick on in the coming weeks.

Martin took over as manager at the start of the season and Roberts continued: “He’s doing a really good job, I can see us starting to move up the table.

“We’ve brought in a lot of new players and the target is to stay in the league and then improve next season, we’re getting new players coming to the club all the time.”

And those new players will certainly have been impressed by Saturday's victory against a Barnwood side who are nine places above Winchcombe in the league.   

“I think it was a result that we deserved,” he said. “We had to dig deep in the final 20 minutes to make sure we didn’t concede but we battled really hard.”

This is Winchcombe’s second season back in the Northern Senior League after winning promotion from the Cheltenham League in 2023/24.

They host mid-table Viney St Swithins on Saturday.

Meanwhile, the reserves’ Cheltenham League Division Two game at Tewkesbury Town 3rds on Saturday was postponed.