TUDOR TALK

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Tuesday 20th November
Southern League Cup 3rd Round
Uxbridge 2 Hemel Town 2 aet. (Hemel Town win 4-3 on Penalties)

The Tudors escaped from jail with a second half display that begged the question “how could they play that badly in the first half”?
The first forty five minutes saw play masterminded by Uxbridge’s Mark Nicholls. By the time the home side scored their first on twenty six minutes, Hemel keeper Ian Brown had already made a string of first class saves to deny James Pritchard, Nicholls twice and the industrious David Warner.
But finally Danny Yeoman found a way past Brown with a near post header from Nicholls left wing cross, and for a while Uxbridge looked as if they could help themselves to more, as Hemel’s midfield failed to find each other on a regular basis (not for the first time this season) - the Tudors only effort on goal coming on eighteen minutes when home keeper Rob Bullivant did well to tip over Drew Roberts thumped free kick.
The home sides second goal came four minutes before the break, when a slick one-two between Kevin Warner and James Pritchard left the left back with just Brown to beat, a feat he accomplished by lifting the ball over the diving keeper and into the net.
The second half proved to be a different story however as the Tudors came out all guns firing.
Chris Dillon scored within a minute - sweeping home Steve Sinclair’s low cross after the wingers initial effort had come back to him off ex-Tudor defender Mark Dennison.
Suddenly, Hemel discovered that the flanks existed, and both Sinclair and Matt Gearing began to trouble the home defence with some good moves that ended in crosses that needed to be dealt with by a now harassed home defence.
Gearing himself headed straight at Bullivant from a Roberts cross ten minutes in, and Dillon also wasted a header from Gearings far post ball on the hour.
Kameron Abbassi then let fly with a long range shot that missed by a foot or so, before Dillon & Gearing again placed good efforts just high of the mark from just inside the box.
It was all Hemel at this stage and their patience was finally rewarded with the equaliser on seventy eight minutes, when Paul Edgeworth’s free-kick into the box was glanced home at the far post by fellow substitute Ollie Burgess.
The final chance of the ninety minutes saw Dean Cracknell fire into the side netting, with Uxbridge’s only effort of the half lashed wide by Pritchard, after David Warner’s initial shot had once more been blocked superbly by Brown.
In the first minute of extra time Brown was on hand again to beat Pritchard’s close range shot away, but the easiest chance of the match saw Dillon fire straight at Bullivant from eight yards out, as Roberts’ flicked header put him in on goal one-on-one.
Hemel had another brief scare eleven minutes in, when David Warner found the back of the net - only to see his strike ruled out fro a dubious offside against Nicholls. But as the match moved into the second period of extra time, Hemel’s better experience showed and Roberts, Burgess (Twice), and Edgeworth all had good chances to score a winner, but just failed to find the target in each case.
The tie finally had to be settled on penalty kicks with Roberts, Dillon, Burgess and Mark Coulson all scoring their kicks for Hemel. However Uxbridge won the toss and took theirs first, with Nicholls, David Warner & Pritchard all finding the net, but with Brown saving Ian Dickens kick (Uxbridge’s third) and lastly Wayne Carter firing over their fifth to give the game to Hemel by a 4-3 margin.

Hemel Town:
Ian Brown, Simon Sweeney, Chris Herron, Steve Sinclair (Ollie Burgess), Nathan Bowden-Haase, Kameron Abbassi, Robbie Kean (Paul Edgeworth), Dean Cracknell, Chris Dillon, Drew Roberts, Matt Gearing (Mark Coulson). Subs (Not Used): Yiadom Yeboah & Dwain Williams.

Uxbridge:
Rob Bullivant, Nathan Stamp, Kevin Warner (Ian Dickens), Mark Weedon, Mark Dennison, Neville Stamp, James Pritchard, Danny Yeoman (Wayne Carter), David Warner, Mark Nicholls, Mark Boyce (Chris Drake). Subs (Not Used): Lee Tunnell & Tommy Howe.