Hempnall FC

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Once again the strength of the squad played a massive part in an excellent 1 – 0 victory away at Mattishall, a side that has dispatched the likes of Dereham, Diss & and Norwich Utd in winning the Senior cup (congratulations guys) & have only lost once since November.

Out were Cudden, Harwin, Lee Devlin, Renaut & JP couldn’t make kick off. So in came Neil (the big Foz) Forsdick, Greg Devlin, Tom Halliwell & Marty Addison, with Kelvin & Ben Nichols keeping their places after their fine performances on Saturday.

Mattishall had their absentees with the influential pair of Duncan Hewitt & Jimmy Lovell not in their line up.

The side was set up for a competitive match with each department clear of their role in the game plan. Our normal wide players were sacrificed as ‘2^nd ball’ became the name of this game.

In this function we have a master of the art in skipper Ben Player & boy did he set about his task with vigour, setting the tone for Hunter, Halliwell & Devlin to follow as we dominated early proceedings.

Chances came & went, with a couple of goalmouth ‘ping pong’ affairs but we couldn’t find the breakthrough.

Mattishall are a hard nut to crack & are dangerous with their long ball counter attacks, which brought out a couple of ‘vintage’ saves for Foz.

Greg Devlin had to depart with what looks like torn ankle ligaments at time of writing & was replaced by Sam Wenham, who was later to play a key role in the outcome of the game.

So, half time arrived all square, with ‘more of the same’ being requested.

Again, I felt we had the lions share of the play but no real clear openings, Browny turned & swung a right footed shot just past the post & Franky when through just delaying his shot a fraction to long, allowing the impressive Tim Hill to get a tackle in.

So the pack was shuffled on 70 minutes as draws are now no longer any good at this stage of the season. JP entered at the back & the ‘Mills monster’ was thrown up front with Franky.

Three minutes later the big man caused disruption in the home penalty area & in stepped Mr ‘Soul’, Sam ‘the man of the moment’ Wenham to strike home with his now infamous left foot!

No risks were taken & Millsy reverted back to his original position to help contain the dangerous Simon Wooden, JP formed the holding player & Browny sacrificed, as we set out our stall to ‘hold what we held’. Dangerous, but you can not win unless you win!!

Mattishall continued to work hard & caused the odd heart flutter but the guys were in no mood to let 3 precious points slip.

As did Saturday’s referee David Myhill, I felt David Robinson had a good game in the middle of the park, dealing well with a competitive but not dirty game contested hard by 2 sides.

No real choice on the man of the match with BP having a real captain’s game but this is not to say others didn’t play well. It was again an all round good performance from 14 committed players