Home Match Reports Archive Constitution Policies Contact Directions Sponsors

Hitchin Town Youth FC U15 v Sawbridgeworth Juniors

Sunday, September 14 2008

Well here we go after a long summer break and only a handful of training sessions the lads were back in at the deep end back in the 2nd division after our sabbatical.

Today we were up against Sawbridgeworth who always in the past have given us a close game. With a new formation and two new strong additions we welcomed Mat and Joe down to Purwell on a glorious sunny lunch time kick off.  After a bit of sparring mostly in the middle of the park Hitchin got lucky when the Sawbo goalie misjudged a long throw from Tom and palmed it into his own net. 1-0. But was it luck or just excellent throwing from Tom? Because in an identical position only 5 mins later Tom threw in again and there was Jack in the box! to head home.2-0

 This was followed by guess what? Another long throw which caused panic in the defence and Ben pounced to get off the mark and to crown his first game as the new captain! 3-0. (3 assists from Tom! well done). The 3rd goal came after a bit of pressure from Sawbo who were stunned by the way they had conceded and it was down to Harry to make two excellent saves to keep them out.

But as the first half panned out Hitchin were on top playing some lovely football with the fullbacks of Jack & Lewis overlapping linking up well with Mat & Joe who were having great games on their debuts. The onus is not now solely on Ollie and he appeared to be much more relaxed to be part of a skilful and hardworking trio. This was shored up with our hardworking holding midfielders Tom & Richard and when needed the new central defensive partnership of the excellent James & Danny who really seemed to enjoy the added responsibility and played an Alan Hansen type of game.

Ben was playing an excellent game as the lone striker holding the ball up and really hurting the defence with his pace. There were more chances notably a thumping header from James off a lovely delivered corner from Mat and a couple of free kicks from Ollie one of which went close. HT 3-0.

The second half saw the introduction of Sam and Josh and they both made good contributions but the boys had to dig in and many changes were made as the boys tired expectedly with this being their 1st game of the season. Sawbo really piled on the pressure as we lost our shape and it was no surprise when we left a gap for the Sawbo striker to slot one home 3-1. But this team showed the strength of character to grind out this victory and the game remained 3-1 at full time.

An excellent start to the league campaign and we have spoken about how close this league is going to be and how there will be more of these games this season and its how we stay disciplined with our shape and continue to play the way we train and the results will continue.
 
MOM Danny

Goals og,Jack, Ben