Hempnall 3 Lowestoft Reserves 3

Hempnall, writes Ray Youngman were without skipper Ben Player Steven Barnes and Tony Shipley for their home game with Lowestoft Reserves, in what turned out to be a game full of goals.

Hempnall started the stronger of the two sides and took the lead when the Lowestoft keeper handled outside his area, and from the resulting free kick, Rob Browne scored.

With Hempnall playing with a lot of confidence they went further ahead through Paul Franklin. After that a couple of half chances went begging.

Just before the half time Hempnall conceded a goal when keeper Cudden was caught off his line for the Lowestoft striker to chip him from outside the area.

The second half saw Hempnall lose their grip on the game and the young Lowestoft side were quick to take advantage and scored two more goals to place them ahead for the first time in the game.

Hempnall still had their chances to score more goals but on the day they did find it a little difficult to find the net.

They gained some reward when some good play down the left saw the ball find Tom Halliwell at the far post to score the equaliser.

Perhaps we were a little unlucky not to have taken all three points, but do not take anything away from Lowestoft as they are a quality side and will take points from a lot of sides as time goes on.

One good thing about the game was the sporting manner in which it was played by both teams and I think that although both teams felt they could have won the game possibly the draw was a fair result.

Also the three match officials made a valuable contribution to the game.

David Yarham was the Match Sponsor and we thank him for his support.

Martham Reserves 1 Hempnall Reserves 5

Hempnall Reserves were forced into promoting several A Team player for their visit to Martham for a cup game in which they won comfortably with goals from Richard Leather 2, Tony Shipley, Tom Amis and James Wells.

Hempnall A 2 Horsford A 1

Hempnall A entertained Horsford A and had to take full advantage of their very young players and were rewarded with a fine win with goals from Andy Guy and Jacob Paston.

The team managers were pleased with the commitment of all the players in their first year in adult football and are learning very fast from the few more senior players in the team.

Chairman David Pointer attends their games to assist with managing the team and on Saturday evening he was very pleased with the result.

One point of interest I have noticed in recent articles in our programme is that we supposedly have three teams, when in fact we have four teams, the fourth being our Veterans who play their games on Sundays.

Andy Soanes is their very popular manager and the team is full of former senior players who over the years have given the club a lot of valuable service.