Frome were narrowly beaten in a bad-tempered game that saw two sendings off.

This match was Mark Salter's 400th in a Frome shirt and the travelling faithful all hoped for a repeat of the hat-trick that had marked his 300th appearance.

But the overnight rain had done little to soften the pitch at Bitton, and the drying wind resulted in a dusty, bumpy pitch that made the ball bounce high and close control very difficult, so it wasn't to be.

Frome started the match kicking up the slope, and should have taken the lead in the 4th minute as a pinpoint Eyre cross from the left wing found the head of the unmarked Rawlins, but his header from ten yards flew over the cross bar and the chance went begging.

Frome definitely looked the better side in the first 20 minutes.

Missiato got to the dead ball line in the 6th minute, Cowler went close in the 19th minute with a right wing cross that the keeper only just managed to palm out from under the bar for a corner and an Eyre corner in the 20th minute was met by Cheeseman at the near post, producing a scrambled clearance by the Bitton defence.

Bitton's first corner came in the 22nd minute, the ball was easily cleared to Rawlins, but he lost possession in midfield and gave away a free kick attempting to recover the the ball.

The free kick was floated into the Frome penalty area and Bitton's tall centre back Jones rose above everyone to head the ball into the far top corner of the net for a well-worked goal.

The high bouncing ball was making control difficult for everyone and numerous fouls were being given away by both sides as they attempeted to get the ball on the ground.

A disputed free kick given against Burke, 30 yards from goal, resulted in Bitton increasing their lead to 2-0 as the ball was hit low by Cherry and, after bouncing numerous times off the pitch, it eventually bounced over Fey's despairing dive and into the bottom corner of the net for a bizzarre goal.

Frome continued pushing to the end of the half and went close with a Lapham free kick in the 36th minute. A a Cowler right wing cross in the 40th mniute found Rawlins at the far post but again the header was saved.

The second half needed Frome to score quickly but Bitton had seemingly decided to defend their lead and employed a tactic where eight players sat deep, defended in depth and relied on finding Meaker or one other striker with a long clearance and hoping for the best.

This, combined with the bumpy pitch, led to a poor, sterile second half which saw few chances created, long periods of head tennis, lots of niggly fouls and frustration levels rising throughout both teams.

Salter went close in the 72nd minute with a glancing header wide from a right wing corner, and a minute later, Harvey collected a Bitton elbow that left him with blood streaming from his nose and requiring 5 minutes of treatment.

In a match where the crowd had been continuously suggesting to that referee that he had been missing a lot of fouls, he surprised everyone in the 81st minute by giving Frome a penalty for a foul that everyone in the crowd had missed.

Mark Salter confidently despatched the penalty to bring the score back to 2-1 and set up an interesting last 10 minutes. But it just wasn't going to happen. High balls into the Bitton box were thumped back upfield and the bumpy pitch stopped attacks along the ground.

Harvey (complete with nose plugs) was shown a 2nd yellow card and sent off in the 86th minute for a foul on Meaker.

And in a bizzarrre last minute incident, Meaker (who was attempting to play out the last few minutes in close proximity to Frome's corner flag) was shown a straight red for berating the linesman at very close range when he felt that the decision had wrongly been given against him.

He re-appeared on the pitch after the final whistle to carry on pleading his case with the referee.

Matt Cowler was man of the match.