COLCHESTER:
2
HARPENDEN: 7
09.12.2006
On the final Saturday before the Christmas
break, Harpenden sponsored by Kingston Smith travelled to Colchester
knowing that only a win would keep their chances alive of remaining
in the pack chasing for promotion to Premier A. Plus also ensuring
that they completed their first double over the opposition
A shock defeat the previous week away to Pelicans
had dented those chances but also provided the evidence that promotion
for the third season running was never going to be straightforward.
Harpenden’s preparation for the game could
not have been worse. Serious traffic delays and an attempt by
the Colchester team to prevent Harpenden getting to the ground,
by closing off almost all entrances to the “compound”,
meant that the team arrived 15 minutes before the game with hardly
enough time for a warm up let alone one of those tear jerking
team talks from skipper Mike Emes.
With little time for a warm up there was no surprise
that Harpenden began the game slowly. Within 2 minutes of the
start of the game a sloppy pass in defence left the Colchester
centre forward with a chance to put the home side ahead. The player
duly took the chance and slotted the ball into the back of the
net to put the home team 1-0 ahead. Harpenden remained nervous
and were it not for some heroic goalkeeping by Alan Clark the
home side could easily have gone 2-0 up.
At that point Harpenden began to regain their
confidence and a move down the right hand side of the pitch resulted
in a fine pass from Todd Baines to Danny Burgess who fired the
ball past the Colchester keeper to put the scores level.
The home side then began a curious tactic. They
began to hang back from the Harpenden team which allowed Harpenden
time and space to play their style of hockey. Harpenden began
to further penetrate the Colchester D and within a further 10
minutes the come back king Ali Hutson had slotted home 2 close
range chances from some well worked moves in the D from Lance
BC and Tom Kavanagh.
Just before half time a crass challenge against
Lance BC by a Colchester defender resulted in a penalty stroke.
Skipper Mike Emes chose his corner and fired the ball past the
hapless keeper. Harpenden went into the break 4-1 to the good.
Harpenden had learnt from the previous week that
teams in this league were not going to give up fighting. They
therefore made sure the pressure that had been exerted in the
latter stages of the first half continued into the second half.
Harpenden were soon awarded another short corner and a training
ground routine was finished in style yet again by our very own
Aussie star Lance BC.
The game then became a little fractious. A stick
tackle by Lance BC and swearing from Mike Emes both resulted in
yellow cards with a Colchester player also spending time in the
sin bin for a rash challenge on Spence.
Colchester scored a second goal from a penalty
stroke but the day went to man of the match Ali Hutson who rolled
back the years to score a further 2 goals to take his tally to
4. The question that all are asking is when will those astros
be finally hung up? Answer – Ask the wife!
Harpenden now go into the mid season break in
3rd place, 5 points behind the leaders Wapping but confident that
the great work put in since October can be continued into the
New Year.
Match report by Ali Hutson
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