Hertford VI 0 - 2 Southgate Tankards

With 7 changes from last week's side and an unfamiliar shortage of defenders, a much reorganised team put up a strong defensive fight against a no-longer veteran Tankards side but ran out of luck in the last 15 minutes to bring our miserable home season to an end (drawn 2 lost 9).

Man of the match goes to Andy Benson who covered Steve's spot in central defence and combined countless vital interceptions with very effective clerarances (when Andy clears, you know the ball won't be back in out 23 for a couple of minutes as least). Geoff Hopkin contributed a string of good saves and the rest of the backs slogged it out determinedly for 55 minutes before the wall was finally breached. Adam Sutherland was out third guest, and together with Dave gave us occasional phases of control in midfield, but on a very sluggish surface we struggled to get decent ball to the forwards and had few chances.

Tor got away behind the defence once but was well closed down by the keeper. A flurry of short corners in the last 10 gave us a chance of an equaliser but we failed to find the telling shot.

All round a game effort against a strong team, and so much nicer not to be chasing the game from the start, as has happened to us too often this year.