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Hitchin Town Hurricanes U11's v Celtic U11's

Saturday, November 4 2006

Fireworks came a day early as brilliant Hurricanes beat Celtic 2 - 1 at Ickleford.

This was always going to be a tough game against Luton team Celtic, who pipped us to the Division 4 title last year by just one point on the last game of the season.
 
The opening pressure came from the visitors but to no avail as our defence of Jacob and Simmy held fast blocking several attacks. On five minutes it looked good though as, caught out on the counter-attack, the Celtic midfield were outfoxed by lightening Adam, who after a fantastic solo run beat the defence but shot just wide of the target. For the next few minutes, it was all fast flowing end to end stuff, with some great football from both sides.
 
The deadlock was eventually broken by the first corner of the game and in the visitors favour. The corner kick was well placed and the Celtic striker put home a fantastic powerful header. 0 - 1 on eight minutes. With Matt unavailable, Jack stepped in as goalie for the day, but had no chance of stopping what was in my opinion, the best goal I have seen this season.

Jack soon made up for it though by a very acrobatic save a few minutes later, tipping the shot over the bar, this time the corner was well cleared by Alfie. Another Celtic shot hit the bar and was then sent way over for a goal kick. Jack took the kick well for Josh on the wing who ran onto it putting a sweet low shot into the bottom left corner for the equalizer, 1 - 1 after 15 minutes.

Now boosted by their comeback, Hurricanes almost took the lead just before half time as Rhys put through a lovely ball to Adam but the Celtic keeper saved it well. Half Time and all square at 1 - 1 after an exciting period that was turning into an excellent game to watch with both teams playing good, fast soccer and as determined as each other to win.
 
The second half started, and Hurricanes were now showing slightly the stronger, with no less than three strikes by Lee and another by Rhys all being saved. Most of this half once again saw end to end battling with both teams defence and keepers halting any increase in the score line despite midfielders running their socks off and forwards putting shot after shot toward the oppositions goalmouth.

Thankfully for Hurricanes, Jack put in an outstanding performance in his stand in role as keeper with some brave charging saves at the feet of the Celtic forwards.
 
With action packed stuff like this though the winner had to come for someone eventually, and to our delight it did with only a few minutes of this great match left. Lee put in a cross from the right that Adam made no mistake with, slamming it into the back of the net from close in, to keep up his amazing record of scoring in every game since the start of the season, but more importantly it was the winning goal.
 
Everybody knows what has not been mentioned in this match report, but it is written to reflect the hard work and determination of both teams in what was certainly the best game so far as good football goes. Every single lad on that pitch put their all into a truly magnificent game and deserved credit and should be proud of themselves. Enough said.
 
Final score Hitchin Town 2 (Josh, Adam) Celtic 1
 
Man of the Match Jack (outstanding keeping!)
 
Match report by Kevin Kitchiner-Day