Southgate Pitchers 3 - 0 Hertford V

Hertford 5s took a full compliment of juniors down to play Southgate's newly founded 'Pitchers' and were unlucky to go down 3 - 0. Southgate also fielded a strong group of slightly older and faster youths, with a full bench of subs to roll on, so on another warm afternoon we dug deep and sweated hard to keep in the game. We were starting to build pressure and create chances when we were knocked out of rhythm by a very well taken breakaway goal on 10 minutes, but thought we had a deserved equalise soon after as Luke Kennedy forced the ball in from short range - only to see the umpire change his mind after the restart and declare the ball had gone in though a hole in the side netting. There were opportnities at both ends before a fine solo run though our defence left us two down, and then we failed to clear a short corner after a fine block from Nick and turned round at 0 - 3 despite having, on balance, the better of the play.

Losing Luke at half time to scouting commitments, and facing a constant stream of refreshed legs from the Southgate bench, we faced much more pressure in the second half and had to defend desperately at times, but midfield kept running back, the critical last tackles kept coming in, and Nick dealt safely with everything we missed. At the other end we continued to create some good openings, but only really tested their keeper a couple of times, so the half ended scoreless.

A very youthful right side (Rob Davies, Ryan, Chris Dean and Luke) played together with character and maturity beyong their years, with Chris Shattock and Mark covering the miles in central midfield and driving us forward time after time. Southgate played surprisingly deep, giving us space to build through midfield, which we used to play a smart short passing game, with good use of the width all the way up the pitch. Tor was the primary target up front and constantly eluded his markers, and kept going to the end despite geting badly floored twice by reckless challenges.

Man of the Match goes to Mark for untiring running and a creative role in most of our attacking opportunities.

Shame about the scoreline, but a tremendous effort and an immensely enjoyable game played in the best spirit of friendly hockey.

Geoff Oates