HARPENDEN: 2
BISHOP STORTFORD: 2
06.10.2007

Harpenden played their first league game at their new home ground at Woolhams in St Albans on Saturday. The match was fast paced and dominated by the home team for significant periods but Harps cruelly had the win stolen from them when Bishops Stortford equalised with the last hit of the match.

The opening exchanges of the game were very even with both teams failing to force clear goal scoring opportunities. Solid defensive play from Ally Arnsby and David Thomas prevented Stortford from threatening Alan Clarke’s goal while in midfield the trio of Danny Burgess, Phil Warren and Todd Baines combined well to ensure Harpenden always posed the greater threat.

As the half wore on this midfield dominance began to tell and Harpenden forced their first short corner, the ball was slipped to veteran Paul Wise who saw his shot charged down by the advancing keeper.

Moments later Harpenden again were in the Stortford shooting circle and again were able to force a penalty corner, this time the home side opted for a direct shot from defender David Jeffrey who shot to the left of the diving keeper and into the corner of the goal for a valuable lead.

After the goal Stortford came back strongly but Harpenden retained their discipline and were able to weather the storm. Then just before the break they forced a third penalty corner. Jeffrey shot again, this time the keeper could only parry the shot into the path of Wise who calmly slotted the ball past the scrambling keeper.

Two-nil at the interval maybe slightly flattered the home side but they certainly had edged an entertaining opening period.

At the start of the second half Harpenden enjoyed their most dominate period of the match, numerous chances were created but through some good goalkeeping and wayward finishing Harpenden failed to get what would have been a match winning third goal. Near misses came from Ally Hudson and Ceri Sharma after both had skilfully found space in a crowded shooting circle.

Harpenden paid a high price for failing to kill of the game. With fifteen minutes to go Stortford were awarded a number of penalty corners, the first few were squandered as a result of good defending and fine goalkeeping from Clarke. Although the pressure did finally tell when after an ugly goal mouth scramble the ball fell kindly to a Stortford attacker with the goal gaping.

Stortford were rejuvenated and pressed for an equaliser which scarcely seemed likely ten minutes earlier, with five minutes to go they seemed certain to score only for Clarke to deflect the ball over the cross bar. Then with time running out with the last attack of the game Stortford were awarded another penalty corner. The shot came in and off a slight deflection the ball flew into the roof of the net giving both sides their first point of the season but leaving Harpenden with the feeling that it was two points thrown away.

Report by David Jeffrey

Scorers
1) David Jeffrey
2) Paul Wise