TUDOR TALK

[tapper]

Sorry for the delay folks - but an artiste needs time to prepare...


Saturday 22nd September
Southern League Premier Division
Hemel Town 0 Swindon Supermarine 1

The Tudors unbeaten start to the new league campaign came to a rather lethargic end, with a poor defeat to third from bottom Swindon.
Hemel should have been a goal to the good after just eight minutes, when Chris Herron’s cross to the far post found the head of an unmarked Nathan Bowden-Haase six yards out. But the defender failed to leap high enough, and got under the ball to send it well over the bar.
Despite this early chance, both sides seemed unable to get out of first gear for the most part as they gave each other the ball constantly in midfield - Hemel trying to blast their way through a large Swindon central defence rather than use the flanks and with both forwards well outmatched physically. Its true the home cause wasn’t helped all day by an overly fussy referee, who along with his linesman appeared to be in different time zone to every one else (so late were some of their decisions), but in truth the Tudors showed very little guile or imagination in trying to break down their visitors.
Supermarine for their part created very little themselves either, but worked hard as a unit to deny any Hemel player on the ball enough time to pick his passes, with the result that a rather tame stalemate ensued.
New Hemel signing from Rugby Town - Matt Gearing - did see his shot from eighteen yards deflected just over by Leigh Henry, and Paul Edgeworth drifted his header from Yiadom Yeboah’s long throw a foot wide of the post on the half hour. But as before Hemel continued to struggle to find any rhythm to their play, and the half time break came with neither side looking capable of breaking the deadlock.
The second half started a little brighter for the home side as on fifty one minutes Gearing raced through onto Dean Cracknell’s pass and lifted the ball over out-coming keeper Tom King, but unfortunately the ball lazily bounced the wrong side of the post.
In what was Swindon’s first effort on goal of the match however, they scored what was to prove to be the winning goal. On fifty five minutes Enoch Boateng managed to work his way to the by-line as Hemel’s defenders stood off him, and his hard hit cross along the six yard line found the head of Justyn McKay (who had managed to steal ahead of Yeboah) and he buried the ball across keeper Ian Brown into the far corner.
Six minutes later Bowden-Haase wasted another golden opportunity at the far post, when he volleyed Ollie Burgess’ corner kick wide from six yards again, and Gearing unluckily placed his low shot across King just wide of the far post with twenty minutes left.
Keeper king then managed to push Bowden-Haase’s header onto the bar with ten minutes left and in typical fashion the rebounding ball fell to the only two players in the box who were unmarked - Swindon’s Chris Copp & Cedric Abraham - who easily cleared the danger before a home player could react.
Swindon for their part continued to play the ball on the ground, but aside from a shot by Boateng on seventy six minutes that flew just wide, they failed to bother Brown any further.
The best opening of the half fell to Burgess with eight minutes left. Gearing worked a one-two with Cracknell and pulled back a low pass from the by-line to his fellow winger who was eight yards out and with an open goal at his mercy. Burgess however snatched at the chance, and the ball soared over the bar to everyone’s incredulity - especially Burgess'.
Finally any chance of salvaging a point disappeared when on ninety minutes substitute Adam Martin lunged two footed at 'Marine skipper Adam Mayo, and was given a straight red card by Mr Rathbone.
Altogether a very disappointing day for the home faithful then, but some complacency had begun to creep into Hemel’s play in recent matches, and maybe this will be the wake up call the side needs ahead of next Saturday’s tough F.A. Cup tie with Chelmsford City at Vauxhall Road.

Hemel Town:
Ian Brown, Simon Sweeney, Chris Herron, Matt Gearing, Nathan Bowden-Haase, Yiadom Yeboah, Ollie Burgess, Dean Cracknell, Garry Sippetts (Adam Martin), Drew Roberts, Paul Edgeworth. Subs (Not Used): Jamie Kearns, Robbie Kean, Fabio Valenti & Luke O’Connell.

Swindon Supermarine:
Tom King, Kyle Lapham, Chris Copp, Adam Mayo, Leigh Henry, Cedric Abraham, Enoch Boateng, Justyn McKay, Nathan Lightbody, Ashley Edenborough (J.P. Mills), Ludovic Quistan. Subs (Not Used: Chris Taylor, Danny Allen, Ian Howell & Lee Matthews.

[steve]

Just noticed the official report on the web-site,strange that there was no mention of Adam Martins two footed lunge and sending off.What's the point of printing a match report with important bit's missing or are they trying to gloss over the fact we had a player sent off.