Hempnall FC

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Football has that great habit of bringing you down to earth when any margin of complacency settles in. Having had an almost perfect pre-season, we totally failed to turn up on Tuesday night; we were out fought, ran and played by a Blofield side that made the most of the opportunities that came their way on the night.

In the post match debris you look for reasons.

Yes we were without key players, which got worse on Monday night when Simon Jackson (calf) & Greg Devlin (knee) both called off. Add this to the already lengthy absentee list of Cudden, Nichols, Bloomfield, Allard, Shipley, Addison and Mills, and that's a lot of talent missing from any ones team. I do expect a certain number to be unavailable at any one point but as with last year we do seem to get more than our fair share. It must be our coaching methods, only kidding Marty.

However, a good side still entered the field of play and should have performed better than it did on the night. Blofield also had their unavailability problems, so we all left with a lot of self reflection to be carried out. As for the game its self the scene was set as early as the 4th minute when a hard working Dan Wynne chased a lost cause, charged down a clearance from Gareth Motterham and showed great composure before heading home. On 20 minutes the same player scored again when a long ball through hopped unusually high over the head of Gareth Motterham & the ‘Ross Jenkins' lookalike (for those of you old enough to remember him!) had the simplest chance to head home.

We huffed & puffed in a first half that didn't really bring any further worth while chances at either end. Halftime brought the opportunity to take stock, apply a new mindset and get stuck in. However, it didn't materialise and a third goal was conceded only 3 minutes into the start off the half, following a scrappy ‘ping pong' affair in our box. We had opportunity but we failed to clear our lines and the ball eventually trickled over the line, to effectively settle the result.

To our credit, the players did continue to soldier on, half chances fell to Kristian Jones, Kelvin Willimott & Sam Page, who was the one bright spot on an other wise dismal day. The fourth goal came when a mistake at the back allowed the newly transferred Roy Beavis to burst through and lob the out rushing keeper.

There was much to reflect onand in post match discussions with Messers Nash & Warman (well done boys) I was remindered of the saying ‘you don't become a bad side over night' I think this is true but I also know that that we all (on and off the pitch) need to work harder than we did on Tuesday, to ensure this is just a blip.

To compound the bad news for the club, on the eve of our first game, it would appear that Ray has decided to retire and I would like to thank him for all his fantastic years of service at the club. He will be missed having been Mr Hempnall for several years but as they say ‘time stops for no man' and Ray feels all his immense efforts have finally caught up with him. The retirement came at short notice but I am sure we will be arranging some form of gathering to give him a decent send off.