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SHEFFORD & SANDY II: 3
HARPENDEN III: 1
15.03.2008
Away trips to the
Falklands capital of “Shefford and Port Stanely” are
always unpredictable affairs. The Taskforce sent by Harpenden
3s last Saturday set out more in hope than expectation following
the team’s capitulation to Letchworth IVs the week before
and some enforced changes to personnel.
Written in 1938, Mikhail Bulgakov’s brilliant
Russian modernist novel “The Master and Margarita”
is constructed around a number of intersecting narratives, all
of which seek to question the orthodox order and understanding
of both the reader and the character’s through the process
of chaos theory. The book thus begins with the devil making a
Faust like appearance to two Communist era writers one sunny evening
in a Moscow park, the consequences of which eventually impact
on Pontius Pilot’s experiences at Passover in Jerusalem
two thousand years before.
In the event Pete Evans side were close to engendering
some chaos theory on their voyage through the South Atlantic themselves,
standing toe to toe with a skilful and aggressive Shefford side
for the full 70 minutes. The threes produced an excellent performance,
but not one that was quite good enough to beat a home side who
played well through out.
Goalkeeper Greg Clarke made his third XI debutant
on Saturday, and along with relative new boy James Evans, was
the undoubted star of the show. Clarke made a number of telling
saves and dealt well with the pressure Shefford put on him throughout
the course of the contest. One can only hope that the youngster
will continue in the position and if he does he surely has a bright
future with the club. Clarke was blameless for all three concessions,
the first coming after senior colleagues failed to clear the ball,
the second resulting from an excellent move by the home side and
the third following an unlucky rebound of a harmless ball against
the post. James Evans returned to the side after playing university
hockey and looked much improved both in terms of confidence and
performance. Evans was involved in many of Harpenden’s best
moves, especially when breaking down the left hand side.
Shefford started confidently, and Clarke was forced
to make a good save as early as the first minute. However it was
not all one-way traffic and Harpenden carved out a numerous chances
during the opening phases. Sadly, most of these fell to Tom Preest
and subsequently came to nothing.
The home side scored twice without reply in the
opening half, the second goal was particularly well taken, a neat
touch at the far post following an intelligently timed run, converting
an excellent hit into the D. However at 2-0 the threes were far
from disheartened and the skipper’s team talk focused on
the positives and the improvement in the performance from their
relative surrender the previous week.
Unfortunately the second half started badly for
the visitors, Harpenden falling further behind after failing to
clear a ball that struck a post. However the defence can take
much credit for the fact that this was the end of the scoring
at their end, and by the closing stages of the match it was the
threes doing the majority of the attacking. Ryan Ely and Andy
Baradell showed a number of good touches in the efforts to secure
a consolation goal, which eventually came when Preest was able
to convert an excellent ball from the skipper at a short corner.
The 3-1 defeat finally put pay to what were in
any case dwindling thoughts of promotion. Nonetheless this has
been an excellent and successful year for the third XI, and they
will look to consolidate this progress over the final two games
of the season.
Report by Tom Preest
Team: Greg Clarke, Neil Liles, Geoff Gould, James
Bird, Simon Evans, Peter Evans, Stuart Berry, Andy Lunn, Jon Pagan,
Tom Preest, Andy Barradell, James Evans, Ryan Ely
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