BISHOP'S STORTFORD: 1
HARPENDEN II: 2
25.9.04

Harpenden Hockey Club 2's first league match of the season started in less than brilliant fashion with Nigel Timms, having just driven his Alfa Romeo to the Bishop's Stortford, inquiring: "Who are we playing today then?"

With the opposition established, and Umpire Paul Wise arriving just in the nick of time, the game began and soon became somewhat bloodthirsty and hot tempered hockey match. The tone for the game was set just moments into the battle when Muddy Waters undercut a ball into the kneecap of East League Lookalike of the Year 1999-2004, Barry Manilow, thus negating the left wing threat for most of the rest of the game and, more worryingly, putting his comeback Vegas shows in jeopardy. Harpenden made the better start, and within three minutes had taken the league when a swift break involving Chris Parsons and skipper Fraser Tant put Timms through and he made no mistake in slotting it past the on-rushing goalkeeper.

With dangerman Manilow incapacitated, Harpenden began to make lightening fast attacks down both flanks, the pace of Toby Pickard, Parsons and Timms being exploited by through balls from Niall McAlister, Ben Thompson and debutant Chris Rogers. For the first 20 minutes of the game, the blues were in total control and their dominance was rewarded with a second goal. Another fast moving attack was ended when Nigel Timms was sent crashing to the ground by the last defender. The defender in question escaped without a card and Harpenden had the chance to make it 2-0 from the penalty spot. Thompson shouldered the responsibility and put the stroke away with a less than convincing penalty that, nonetheless, found its way past the Stortford keeper.

This second blow appeared to galvanise the hosts, whose passing became more accurate and possession percentage increased. However the Harpenden defence, organised by the unholy triumvirate of Ben Brind, Neil Liles and Dave Munton kept them at bay with the overall outcome of Brind not having a touch of the ball in the first half.

Harpenden came out after the break looking slightly lethargic and, after another Harpenden chance saw Tant and Timms leave the ball for one another after being put clean through, Bishops Stortford laid siege to Harpenden goal. Each Harpenden defender was having his own private battle within the context of the match. At one point Muddy Waters pirouetted past his marker twice in one move, with the grace of a ballerina, and then proceeded to lose control of the ball and put it out of play. On the opposite side Andy Lunn was doing similar things to his marker by continually putting the ball past him with ease. At one stage a tremendous dummy saw him take on and elude the beaky songsmith lookalike with such audacity that it left Manilow musing “Oh Andy, you came and you left without passing, but you wriggled away.”

The Twin Towers of Munton and Liles were defending, organising and distributing the ball expertly. However, it was five minutes in to the second half when the real 'fun' had started. First, one Storford midfielder talked his way in to an upgrade from a free-hit to a green and then a yellow. Then, an awful Liles challenge not out of place on a rugby pitch caused already short tempers to boil over into ugly warfare, resulting in both Liles and his antagonist also being yellow carded. During this 10 vs 9 spell, Bishop Stortford took advantage of Liles’ cooling off period and finally broke through the defensive wall, rounded Ben Brind and, despite the efforts of Lunny and his goal-line clearance, scored at the second attempt.

This was the end of the scoring and Harpenden practised the maxim of the best form of attack being defence for the rest of the game and proceeded to camp in the Bishops Stortford half for the rest of the game. An ugly match ended with the right result for Harpenden as they got their league campaign off to a winning start.

Next week the blues host Broxbourne, with a team decimated by poor availability. They’ll have their work cut out if they are to secure a second victory.

Ben Thompson: On the spot

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